"Now when the little maid was freed
And home again that day,
Straight to the window she did speed
And sang a merry lay.
"'Not that we ask, oh, maiden fair,
'Tis hard to treat us so,
But tresses of your golden hair,
Or tokens ere we go.'"
The dance grew faster and more furious. The big Maraîchins seized their partners and sprang them so high that their muslin coifs touched the ceiling. The mothers drank a final cup of coffee. The card-players watched the sarabande through the dusty atmosphere by the uneven light of the smoking lamps. Mathurin and Félicité, sitting closer together, still talked on. But the daughter of La Seulière had suffered one of her hands to be taken between those of the cripple, and it was the huge hairy hands that trembled, and the little white hand that seemed not to understand, or to be unwilling to respond.
The ronde came to an end: