The two friends listened to the dog with interest, and the shepherd with attention; but Robineau, who was striding to and fro, stamping the ground angrily, cried:
"Messieurs, I don’t know whether you came to Auvergne to talk with dogs and to knock at every door.—As for myself, as I have a different object, I am going to have the honor of bidding you adieu if you don’t choose to go forward."
"Nonsense, Robineau! don’t get excited; we are coming right along. I confess that I would have liked to see this girl."
"So would I!" said Edouard.
"But since she is absent, and you don’t feel like taking another little walk into the mountains, we will go with you, reserving the right to come back without you to see the little sorceress."
"There she is! there she is!" cried the shepherd at that moment, pointing toward the mountain. The young men at once turned their eyes in that direction and saw a young girl, who was coming quickly down into the valley, driving a herd of goats before her.
Alfred and Edouard remained where they stood and followed the girl with their eyes. Her gait was light and active; sometimes she ran after her goats, again she turned to call the stragglers. When she descended a steep slope, her feet seemed hardly to touch the ground, and she leaped as if in sport over deep excavations. At last she reached the valley, where they were better able to distinguish her features: her great deep-blue eyes were shaded by long black lashes, and her eyelids, often half lowered, added to the sweetness of her expression, which was at once artless and shy. Her nose was small and well shaped, her mouth, which was rather large, revealed when she smiled teeth as white as ivory; her fair hair fell in great curls over her brow, and was arranged with taste and with more care than is usual among the women of the mountains; her complexion was but slightly darkened by the sun, from which it was sheltered by a broad-brimmed straw hat. She was of medium height, but slender and graceful; her foot and hand were small and shapely. A brown skirt and a waist of the same material, with a little red and white apron, comprised her whole costume; but there was in her manner of wearing them a grace that did not at all resemble the heavy and awkward carriage of the women of Auvergne.
"She is charming!" said Alfred.
Edouard said nothing, but his eyes followed Isaure’s every movement.
"Yes," said Robineau, "she’s very pretty for a peasant."