across her hands. This was the hour she had so much loved. The awakened
birds began to sing in the trees.

"I opened the window to its fullest extent and drew back the curtains
that the whole heavens might look in upon us, and, bending over the icy
corpse, I took in my hands the mutilated head and slowly, without terror
or disgust, I imprinted a kiss, a long kiss, upon those lips which had
never before been kissed."

Leon Chenal remained silent. The women wept. We heard on the box seat the
Count d'Atraille blowing his nose from time to time. The coachman alone
had gone to sleep. The horses, who no longer felt the sting of the whip,
had slackened their pace and moved along slowly. The drag, hardly
advancing at all, seemed suddenly torpid, as if it had been freighted
with sorrow.

[Miss Harriet appeared in Le Gaulois, July 9, 1883, under the title
of Miss Hastings. The story was later revised, enlarged; and partly
reconstructed. This is what De Maupassant wrote to Editor Havard
March 15, 1884, in an unedited letter, in regard to the title of the
story that was to give its name to the volume:

"I do not believe that Hastings is a bad name, inasmuch as it is
known all over the world, and recalls the greatest facts in English
history. Besides, Hastings is as much a name as Duval is with us.

"The name Cherbuliez selected, Miss Revel, is no more like an
English name than like a Turkish name. But here is another name as
English as Hastings, and more euphonious; it is Miss Harriet.
I will ask you therefore to substitute Harriet for Hastings."