"True as God," said my father; "she is a fine sprig of a girl, and pretty as the sunshine, though the fever has rather paled her. But that will go off; feed her up, and she won't sell the worse for it."
When my father said this his head was still full of the talk of the horse-dealers at the fair. But seeing that the girl had left her sabots in the cart, and that it would be no easy matter to find them, he said to me,—
"Here! you are strong enough to hold the little girl for a while."
Then, putting her into my arms, he harnessed our mare into the place of the useless donkey, and pulled the cart out of the mud-hole. But there was another quagmire farther on, as my father knew, having gone that road several times; so calling to me to come on, he walked in front with the peasant, who was twisting his ass's ears.
I carried the great girl and looked at her with amazement; for though she was a head taller than Brulette, I could see by her figure that she was no older.
She was white and slender as a wax taper, and her black hair, breaking loose from a little cap made in the fashion of other parts, which had been rumpled as she slept, fell over my breast and almost down to my knees. I had never seen anything so perfect as her pale face, her clear blue eyes fringed with thick lashes, her gentle, tired air, and even a perfectly black mark at one corner of her mouth, which made her beauty something strange and never to be forgotten.
She seemed so young that my heart said nothing to me, though it was close to hers; yet it was not so much her want of years, perhaps, as the languor of her illness that made her appear so childish. I did not speak to her, and walked along without thinking her heavy; but I took pleasure in looking at her, the same pleasure that one feels at the sight of any fine thing, whether it be a girl or a woman, a flower or a fruit.
As we neared the second mud-hole, where her father and mine began, the one to urge his horse, the other to shove the wheel, the little girl spoke to me in a language which made me laugh, for I did not understand a word of it. She was surprised at my surprise, and then she spoke in the language we all speak.
"Don't strain yourself carrying me," she said; "I can walk very well without sabots; I am as much used to it as others."
"Yes, but you are ill," said I; "and I could carry four like you. What country do you belong to? That was a queer language you spoke just now."