FOURTEENTH EVENING.
The beautiful Thérence had prepared everything for our breakfast, and seeing that the sun was getting up she asked Brulette if she had thought of waking Joseph. "It is time," she said, "and he does not like it if I let him sleep too late, because the next night it keeps him wakeful."
"If you are accustomed to wake him, dear," answered Brulette, "please do so now. I don't know what his habits are."
"No," said Thérence, curtly, "it is your business to take care of him now; that is what you have come for. I shall give up and take a rest, and leave you in charge."
"Poor José!" Brulette could not help exclaiming. "I see he has been a great care to you, and that he had better go back with us to his own country."
Thérence turned her back without replying, and I said to Brulette, "Let us both go and call him. I'll bet he will be glad to hear your voice first."
José's lodge joined that of the Head-Woodsman. As soon as he heard Brulette's voice he came running to the door, crying out: "Ah! I feared I was dreaming, Brulette; then it is really true that you are here?"
When he was seated beside us on the logs he told us that for the first time in many months he had slept all night in one gulp: in fact, we could see it on his face, which was ten sous better than it was the night before. Thérence brought him some chicken-broth in a porringer, and he wanted to give it to Brulette, who refused to take it,—all the more because the black eyes of the girl of the woods blazed with anger at José's offer.
Brulette, who was too shrewd to give any ground for the girl's vexation, declined, saying that she did not like broth and it would be a great pity to waste it upon her, adding, "I see, my lad, that you are cared for like a bourgeois, and that these kind people spare nothing for your comfort and recovery."
"Yes," said José, taking Thérence's hand and joining it in his with that of Brulette, "I have been a great expense to my master (he always called the Woodsman by that title, because he had taught him music). Brulette, I must tell you that I have found another angel upon earth beside you. Just as you helped my mind and consoled my heart when I was half an idiot and well-nigh good for nothing, so she has cared for my poor suffering body when I fell ill with fever here. I can never thank her as I ought for all she has done for me; but I can say one thing—there's not a third like you two; and in the day of recompense the good God will grant his choicest crowns to Catherine Brulet, the rose of Berry, and to Thérence Huriel, the sweet-briar of the woods."