"Oh, father! You are surely not going to scold a son of yours because he
happens to be on friendly terms with a pretty girl! Why, as you may
remember, it was I who gave her her first bicycle lesson nearly ten years
ago. And you will recollect the fine white roses which she helped me to
secure in the enclosure by the mill for Denis' wedding."
Gregoire still laughed at the memory of that incident, and lived afresh
through all his old time sweethearting--the escapades with Therese along
the river banks, and the banquets of blackberries in undiscoverable
hiding-places, deep in the woods. And it seemed, too, that the love of
childhood had revived, and was now bursting into consuming fire, so
vividly did his cheeks glow, and so hotly did his eyes blaze as he thus
recalled those distant times.
"Poor Therese! We had been at daggers drawn for years, and all because
one evening, on coming back from the fair at Vieux-Bourg, I pushed her
into a pool of water where she dirtied her frock. It's true that last
spring we made it up again on finding ourselves face to face in the
little wood at Monval over yonder. But come, father, do you mean to say
that it's a crime if we take a little pleasure in speaking to one another
when we meet?"
Rendered the more anxious by the fire with which Gregoire sought to
defend the girl, Mathieu spoke out plainly.
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