spinsters at the age of fifty. She seemed to be preserved in a pickle of
innocence, but her heart still retained something very youthful and
inflammable. She loved both nature and animals with a fervor, a love like
old wine fermented through age, with a sensuous love that she had never
bestowed on men.

"One thing is certain, that the sight of a bitch nursing her puppies, a
mare roaming in a meadow with a foal at its side, a bird's nest full of
young ones, screaming, with their open mouths and their enormous heads,
affected her perceptibly.

"Poor, solitary, sad, wandering beings! I love you ever since I became
acquainted with Miss Harriet.

"I soon discovered that she had something she would like to tell me, but
dare not, and I was amused at her timidity. When I started out in the
morning with my knapsack on my back, she would accompany me in silence as
far as the end of the village, evidently struggling to find words with
which to begin a conversation. Then she would leave me abruptly and walk
away quickly with her springy step.

"One day, however, she plucked up courage:

"I would like to see how you paint pictures. Are you willing? I have been
very curious.'

"And she blushed as if she had said something very audacious.

"I conducted her to the bottom of the Petit-Val, where I had begun a
large picture.