"We will have lunch on the grass," the girl added.

The grandmother, who had an affection for cats, had been running after
one that belonged to the house, trying to coax it to come to her for the
last ten minutes. The animal, who was no doubt secretly flattered by her
attentions, kept close to the good woman, but just out of reach of her
hand, and quietly walked round the trees, against which she rubbed
herself, with her tail up, purring with pleasure.

"Hello!" suddenly exclaimed the young man with the yellow hair, who was
wandering about. "Here are two swell boats!" They all went to look at
them and saw two beautiful canoes in a wooden shed; they were as
beautifully finished as if they had been ornamental furniture. They hung
side by side, like two tall, slender girls, in their narrow shining
length, and made one wish to float in them on warm summer mornings and
evenings along the flower-covered banks of the river, where the trees dip
their branches into the water, where the rushes are continually rustling
in the breeze and where the swift kingfishers dart about like flashes of
blue lightning.

The whole family looked at them with great respect.

"Oh, they are indeed swell boats!" Monsieur Dufour repeated gravely, as
he examined them like a connoiseur. He had been in the habit of rowing in
his younger days, he said, and when he had spat in his hands--and he
went through the action of pulling the oars--he did not care a fig
for anybody. He had beaten more than one Englishman formerly at the
Joinville regattas. He grew quite excited at last and offered to make a
bet that in a boat like that he could row six leagues an hour without