"If you had heard her speak, mademoiselle," said Edouard, "you would consider us very pardonable. She is not a mere peasant like the other girls one meets in these mountains; she is a young woman with refined and gracious manners, a keen and delicate wit, a sweet and touching voice, who expresses herself as well as one who has received the best education."
"Oh, monsieur! how warm you get!" said Cornélie with a satirical air. "You are this extraordinary damsel’s true knight, I see!"
"I do her justice, mademoiselle; that is all."
"I beg pardon, monsieur," said Eudoxie; "but if this goatherd is really such a person as you describe, she must indeed be a sorceress; for I should like to know who could have taught her to talk and express herself differently from the other country girls? unless she has not always lived here in the mountains, unless she is a deserted Ariadne."
"The deduction is extremely judicious!" said Férulus; "she cannot have learned without a teacher; and except my boarding-school, which she never attended, I know of no masters of arts in this neighborhood."
"I agree, mesdames," said Alfred, "that there is, in truth, something hard to explain in respect to this girl; but in my opinion that adds to the charm of her personality."
"The charm of a cowherd! She must be most seductive!" said Cornélie, with a sarcastic smile.
"Mademoiselle," said Edouard, "pray have a little compassion for a person whom you do not know!"
"Oh! I see that one would be very ill-advised to speak ill of her before you, messieurs! I leave you your shepherdess! But I confess that I should never have suspected that two young men of such excellent tone could be attracted by such a rustic character!"
"For my part, I say that we must see her in order to form a just estimate of her," said the marquis; "I shall go hunting in that direction."