“We don’t eat the hens whose eggs we have eaten; take her away, Père Ledrux.”
“Well! you understand, it’s in your interest; she’d spoil all the others.”
Père Ledrux went off to the hencoop, and Honorine had returned to the house, when Poucette came running to Agathe, crying out:
“Mamzelle, here she is, she’s coming this way.”
“Who? the amazon?”
“Yes, she’s on the narrow road, at the end of the garden; you can see her nicely from the summer-house.”
“Let us go there then!”
Agathe was soon at the window of the summer-house, and Poucette, who had followed her, pointed to a lady on horseback, coming from Gournay, and riding her horse at a gallop, with a poise and boldness worthy of a circus rider.
Thélénie was dressed in a beautiful habit of light blue broadcloth; on her head was a man’s hat, with a very broad brim, set a little on one side, and adorned with a waving mass of black ribbons. Her lovely black hair fell in corkscrew curls on each side of her face, and her great gleaming eyes shone with wonderful brilliancy beneath her hat-brim. She held in her right hand a dainty riding-crop, with which she lashed her horse vigorously when he showed signs of relaxing his pace.
Agathe gazed with unwearying admiration at the beautiful equestrian; she leaned from the window in order to see her better, saying to Poucette: