It is a red-letter day for the pretty girls, a day of retribution for beauty, when the somewhat problematical charms of the salons are summoned forth into the bright sunlight, to compete with the vigorous health and blooming youth of the village maidens ; when the masculine areopagus is made up of judges of all ranks, and the contending parties are brought face to face, amid the dust and under the blaze of keen glances, while the violins are playing. Many righteous triumphs, many well-merited reparations, many long contested judgments, make the day of the fête champêtre memorable in the annals of coquetry ; and the first of May was, in the Black Valley as elsewhere, a great subject of secret rivalry between the peasant women in their Sunday clothes and the ladies of the neighboring town.

But it was at Grangeneuve that the most formidable arsenal of these artless fascinations was prepared for use early in the morning. It was in a large, low room, lighted by small-paned windows ; the walls were covered with a gaudy-hued paper, which clashed with the blackened beams of the ceiling, the solid oak doors, and the common clothes-press. In that imperfectly decorated apartment, where the classic rusticity of its primitive condition was emphasized by some handsome modern furniture, a lovely girl of sixteen stood before the scalloped gilt frame of an old mirror which seemed to lean forward to admire her, giving the last touches to a costume more gorgeous than refined. But Athénaïs, the honest farmer’s only heir, was so youthful, so rosy, so delicious to look upon, that she seemed graceful and natural even in her borrowed finery. While she arranged the folds of her tulle dress, madame her mother was stooping in front of the door, with her sleeves rolled up to the elbow, preparing in a huge kettle some sort of a compound of bran and water, about which a demi-brigade of ducks stood in good order, in an ecstasy of anticipation. A bright and joyous sunbeam entered through the open door, and fell upon the gayly bedecked maiden, rosy-cheeked and dainty, so different from her buxom, sunburned, homespun-clad mother.

At the other end of the room, a young man dressed in black sat carelessly on a couch and gazed at Athénaïs without speaking. But his features did not express that effusive, childish delight which every one of the girl’s movements betrayed. At times indeed a faint expression of irony and compassion seemed to raise the corners of his large, thin-lipped, mobile mouth.

Monsieur Lhéry, or Père Lhéry, as he was still called from habit by the peasants whose companion and equal he had been for many years, was placidly warming his white-stockinged shins at the fire of fagots which burned on the hearth at all seasons, as the custom is in the country. He was a most worthy man, still hale and hearty, and he wore striped short-clothes, a flowered waistcoat, a long coat and a queue. The queue is a priceless vestige of the past, which is rapidly vanishing on French soil. Berri having suffered less than any other province from the inroads of civilization, that style of head-dress still prevails there among a few loyal adherents in the class of half-bourgeois, half-rustic farmers. In their youth it was the first step toward aristocratic habits, and they would consider that they were going backward to-day, if they should deprive their heads of that social distinction. Monsieur Lhéry had protected his against the satirical assaults of his daughter, and it was perhaps the only subject upon which Athénaïs’s doting father had refused to accede to her wishes during her whole life.

“Come, come, mamma !” said Athénaïs, fastening the golden clasp of her black belt, “ haven’t you finished feeding your ducks ? Aren’t you dressed yet ? Why, we shall never get started !”

“Patience, patience, my girl!” said Mère Lhéry, distributing the food among her fowls with noble impartiality; “I shall have all the time I need to fix myself while they’re hitching Mignon to the wagon. Ah! bless my soul, my child, I don’t need all the time you do ! I am no longer young; and when I was, I didn’t have the time nor the means to make myself pretty as you do. I didn’t spend two hours over my dressing, I tell you !”

“Are you reproaching me now ?” said Athénaïs with a pout.

“No, my girl, no,” replied the old woman. “Enjoy yourself, make yourself fine, my child ; you are rich, make the most of your father and mother’s hard work. We are too old to enjoy it now. And then, when you’ve got into the habit of being poor, you can’t get out of it. I might have servants to wait on me for my money, but it’s impossible ; the old habit is too strong for me, and I must do everything in the house with my own hands. But you play the great lady, my girl; you were brought up for that; it’s what your father intended; you’re not made for any ploughboy, and the husband you get will be glad enough to find you with white hands, eh?”

As Madame Lhéry finished wiping her kettle and delivering this affectionate rather than sensible harangue, she made a grimace at the young man by way of a smile. He pretended not to notice it, and Père Lhéry, who was gazing at his shoe buckles in the state of vacuous stupidity so sweet to the peasant in his hours of repose, lifted his half-closed eyes to his future son-in-law, as if to share his satisfaction. But the future son-in-law in order to escape those mute attentions, rose, changed his seat, and finally said to Madame Lhéry:

“Shall I go to get the carriage ready, aunt ?”

“Go, my boy, go if you will. I shan’t keep you waiting.”

The nephew was about to leave the room when a fifth person entered, who, in manner and in costume, presented a striking contrast to the occupants of the farmhouse.

II

She was a small, slender woman, who seemed, at first glance, to be about twenty-five years of age ; but, upon a closer view, one might credit her with thirty years and not be too liberal to her. Her slight and well proportioned figure still had the grace of youth; but her face, which was both distinguished and pretty, bore the marks of grief, which is even more blasting in its effects than the lapse of years. Her careless attire, her undressed hair, her tranquil manner, were sufficiently indicative of her purpose not to attend the fête. But, in the diminutive size of her slipper, in the modest and graceful arrangement of her gray dress, in the whiteness of her neck, in her firm and elastic step, there was more genuine aristocracy than in all Athénaïs’s finery. And yet this imposing personage, at whose entrance all the others rose respectfully, bore no other name among her hosts at the farm than that of Mademoiselle Louise.

She offered her hand affectionately to Madame Lhéry, kissed her daughter on the forehead, and bestowed a friendly smile on the young man.

“Well,” said Père Lhéry, “have you had a nice long walk this morning, my dear young lady ?”

“Guess where I really dared to go ?” replied Mademoiselle Louise, seating herself familiarly beside him.

“Not to the château, I hope?” said the nephew, hastily.

“To the château, just so, Bénédict,” she replied.

“How imprudent!” exclaimed Athénaïs, suspending for a moment the operation of crimping her curly locks, and curiously drawing near.

“Why so?” rejoined Louise; “didn’t you tell me that all the servants had been changed except poor nurse ? And she certainly would not have betrayed me if I had happened to meet her.”

“But you might have met madame.”

“At six o’clock In the morning ? Madame stays in bed until noon.”

“So you rose before dawn, did you ?” said Bénédict. “Indeed, I thought that I heard you open the garden door.”

“But there’s mademoiselle!” exclaimed Madame Lhéry; “they say she’s a very early riser, and very active. Suppose you had met her ?”

“Ah ! if I only could !” said Louise, excitedly ; “ I shall have no rest till I have seen her face, and heard the sound of her voice.