"If you are not too tired, I will take you for another ramble. We will go to see my grand-aunt at Othys."
Before I had time to reply, she ran joyously to smooth her hair before the mirror, and put on her rustic straw hat, her eyes sparkling with innocent gaiety.
Our way, at first, lay along the banks of the Thève, through meadows sprinkled with daisies and buttercups; then we skirted the woods of Saint Lawrence, sometimes crossing streams and thickets to shorten the road. Blackbirds were whistling in the trees, and tomtits, startled at our approach, flew joyously from the bushes.
Now and then we spied beneath our feet the periwinkles which Rousseau loved, putting forth their blue crowns amid long sprays of twin leaves, a network of tendrils which arrested the light steps of my companion. Indifferent to the memory of the philosopher of Geneva, she sought here and there for fragrant strawberries, while I talked of the New Heloise, and repeated passages from it, which I knew by heart.
"Is it pretty?" she asked.
"It is sublime."
"Is it better than Auguste Lafontaine?"
"It is more tender."
"Well, then," said she, "I must read it. I will tell my brother to bring it to me the next time he goes to Senlis."
I went on reciting portions of the Heloise, while Sylvie picked strawberries.