“You love me fondly, do you not?”
“I! who told you that?”
“My uncle Lazare.”
She stood there in confusion. Her hand began to tremble in mine. As she was on the point of running away, I took her other hand. We were face to face, in a sort of hollow in the hedge, and I felt Babet’s panting breath running all warm over my face. The freshness of the air, the rustling silence of the night, hung around us.
“I don’t know,” stammered the young girl, “I never said that—his reverence the curé misunderstood—For mercy’s sake, let me be, I am in a hurry.”
“No, no,” I continued, “I want you to know that I am going away to-morrow, and to promise to love me always.”
“You are leaving to-morrow!”
Oh! that sweet cry, and how tenderly Babet uttered it! I seem still to hear her apprehensive voice full of affliction and love.
“You see,” I exclaimed in my turn, “that my uncle Lazare said the truth. Besides, he never tells fibs. You love me, you love me, Babet! Your lips this morning confided the secret very softly to my fingers.”
And I made her sit down at the foot of the hedge. My memory has retained my first chat of love in its absolute innocence. Babet listened to me like a little sister. She was no longer afraid, she told me the story of her love. And there were solemn sermons, ingenious avowals, projects without end. She vowed she would marry no one but me, I vowed to deserve her hand by labour and tenderness. There was a cricket behind the hedge, who accompanied our chat with his chaunt of hope, and all the valley, whispering in the dark, took pleasure in hearing us talk so softly.