From the French of MARCEL PRÉVOST.
All that afternoon we had walked through the forest, stick in hand,
our bags slung over our shoulders, through that magnificent forest
of Tronsays, which covers one half the St. Amand country, and one
half of Nevers. The little village of Ursay, squatting on the bank of
the Cher, in the rent of the valley which cuts through the centre of
the forest, was our last halting-place for the day. We dined with an
old friend, the modest doctor of five or six neighboring communes;
and after dinner we sat musing on the stoop, with our cherry pipes
between our lips.
The shadows fell around us, over the dense blue mass of forest that
encircled the horizon with all the solemn slowness of night in June.
The sky was streaked with flights of swallows. The nine o'clock
Angelus scattered its notes with intervals of silence from the
height of a snuffer-like steeple which emerged from among the roofs.
From distant farms came the barking of dogs calling and answering one
another.
A woman, still young, in a red woollen skirt and a white linen shirt,
came out of a house near by, and walked down toward the river. With
her left arm she pressed a baby against her bosom. A little boy held
her other hand, and gave his in turn to a still smaller brother. When
they reached the bank of the Cher, the young woman sat upon a great
stone; and while the two boys, hastily undressed, were paddling and
splashing about like ducks in the stream, she nursed her last-born.
One of our party, who was a painter, said, "There is a picture that
would be popular at the Salon. How splendidly built and well-lighted
that woman is! And what a pretty bright spot that red skirt forms in
the blue landscape!"