"Ah, Brulette!" he cried, "how lucky you are to remember like that! Again! sing it again! 'Listen to the nightingale.'"
"I would rather sing the whole song," she answered; and thereupon she sang it straight through without missing a word, which delighted Joseph so much that he pressed her hands, saying, with a courage I didn't think him capable of, that only a musician could be worthy of her.
"Well, certainly," said Brulette, thinking of Huriel, "if I had a lover I should wish him to be both a good singer and a good bagpiper."
"It is rare to be both," returned Joseph. "A bagpipe ruins the voice, and except the Head-Woodsman—"
"And his son," said Brulette, heedlessly.
I nudged her elbow, and she began to talk of something else, but Joseph, who was eaten up with jealousy, persisted in harking back to the song.
"I believe," he said, "that when Père Bastien composed those words he was thinking of three fellows of our acquaintance; for I remember a talk we had with him after supper the day of your arrival in the forest."
"I don't remember it," said Brulette, blushing.
"But I do," returned Joseph. "We were speaking of a girl's love, and Huriel said it couldn't be won by tossing up for it. Tiennet declared, laughing, that softness and submission were of no use, and to be loved we must needs be feared, instead of being too kind and good. Huriel argued against Tiennet, and I listened without saying a word. Am not I the one who 'bears the flower,—the youngest of the three, who loves and cowers'? Repeat the last verse, Brulette, as you know it so well—about 'gifts for those who ask.'"
"Since you know it as well as I do," said Brulette, rather nettled, "keep it to sing to the first girl you make love to. If Père Bastien likes to turn the talk he hears into songs, it is not for me to draw conclusions. Besides, I know nothing about it. But my feet are tingling with cold, and while the horse walks up this hill, I shall take a run to warm them."