“Is it because you’re sick, my child?” Mère Fourcy asked her niece, when she came and seated herself by her side.
“No, aunt, I ain’t sick, but I’m tired.”
“Tired! you! the greatest dancer in the whole country!”
“Well! I guess one gets tired of everything, aunt. I don’t feel in the mood to-day.”
“That makes a difference.”
“Come on, Mamzelle Denise, come and have a dance,” several young men said to the little milkmaid. And one of them pulled her arm until he almost dislocated it, another struck his palm against hers with all his might, and a third, while saluting her, trod on her feet. With such delicate attentions it is customary to pay court to a village belle, who sometimes retorts by a ringing slap on the gallant’s face, thereby indicating that he is in her good graces.
But Denise distributed no slaps among the youths who surrounded her; she simply sent them away, saying:
“Let me alone, when I tell you that I don’t want to dance.”
“Oh, yes, you do! oh, yes! She’ll dance—you’ll dance—she’s joking when she says that.”
But Denise held her ground, and when the dancers had taken their leave, she said to her aunt: