She simply hastened her steps homeward, with lips compressed, and black, fierce eyes.  Then after shutting the gate, she perhaps cast one long glance at the gang of urchins.  She would have become vicious, have lapsed into fierce pariah savagery, if her childishness had not sometimes gained the mastery.  Her extreme youth brought her little girlish weaknesses which relieved her.  She would then cry with shame for herself and her father.  She would hide herself in a stable so that she might sob to her heart’s content, for she knew that, if the others saw her crying, they would torment her all the more.  And when she had wept sufficiently, she would bathe her eyes in the kitchen, and then again subside into uncomplaining silence.  It was not interest alone, however, which prompted her to hide herself; she carried her pride in her precocious strength so far that she was unwilling to appear a child.  In time she would have become very unhappy.  Fortunately she was saved by discovering the latent tenderness of her loving nature.

The well in the yard of the house occupied by aunt Dide and Silvere was a party-well.  The wall of the Jas-Meiffren cut it in halves.  Formerly, before the Fouques’ property was united to the neighbouring estate, the market-gardeners had used this well daily.  Since the transfer of the Fouques’ ground, however, as it was at some distance from the outhouses, the inmates of the Jas, who had large cisterns at their disposal, did not draw a pail of water from it in a month.  On the other side, one could hear the grating of the pulley every morning when Silvere drew the water for aunt Dide.

One day the pulley broke.  The young wheelwright made a good strong one of oak, and put it up in the evening after his day’s work.  To do this he had to climb upon the wall.  When he had finished the job he remained resting astride the coping, and surveyed with curiosity the large expanse of the Jas-Meiffren.  At last a peasant-girl, who was weeding the ground a few feet from him, attracted his attention.  It was in July, and the air was broiling, although the sun had already sank to the horizon.  The peasant-girl had taken off her jacket.  In a white bodice, with a coloured neckerchief tied over her shoulders, and the sleeves of her chemise turned up as far as her elbows, she was squatting amid the folds of her blue cotton skirt, which was secured to a pair of braces crossed behind her back.  She crawled about on her knees as she pulled up the tares and threw them into a basket.  The young man could only see her bare, sun-tanned arms stretching out right and left to seize some overlooked weed.  He followed this rapid play of her arms complacently, deriving a singular pleasure from seeing them so firm and quick.  The young person had slightly raised herself on noticing that he was no longer at work, but had again lowered her head before he could distinguish her features.  This shyness kept him in suspense.  Like an inquisitive lad he wondered who this weeder