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 moments," said I, "and to tell the truth, I am not so very anxious to meet him."

"That's just the way I feel," she answered.

I looked out of the kitchen window at the meadows, all golden now with the rays of the setting sun which shone between the long grass blades. Down by the stream two cows were standing in the water, and a little bird hopped about on the shining pebbles. A black horse, with a star on his forehead, and a dapple gray were standing there; the black with his head resting on the back of the other. The fresh scent of hay and lilacs blew through the open door; the room was dark and the least bit musty; and I could just sniff the good cherry brandy from the mug before me. "You have a nice place of it here," I could not help saying.

"How much nicer if you had been in it all this time!" she said, putting her hand over mine as it lay on the table. It made me almost sorry that I had come, for of course I did not want her to be unhappy.

"Belette," said I, "perhaps on the whole things are better as they are; we get along well enough like this for an hour or two, but if we had had to spend our lives together, you know that there would have been trouble. Surely you must have heard that I have turned out rather badly: a