"I thank you, swollen cheek," said Barefoot to herself, stroking her disfigured face; "you have done me a good turn. Through you I can talk to him as if I were not here; I can speak behind a mask, like a clown on Shrove Tuesday. Hurrah—that is merry!"
It was wonderful how this inward cheerfulness almost counteracted her bodily fever. She felt merely tired—indescribably tired; and she was half-pleased and half-sorry when she saw the foreman greasing the wheels of the Bernese chaise-wagon, and heard that her master was going to ride out with the stranger immediately. She hurried into the kitchen, and there she overheard the farmer saying to John in the parlor:
"If you care to take a ride, John, that would be fine. Then, Rose, you can sit with me in the Bernese chaise, and you, John, can ride alongside of us."
"But your wife is going too, isn't she?" inquired John, after a pause.
"I have a child to nurse, and cannot go away," said the farmer's wife.
"And I don't like to be driving about the country on a working-day," said Rose.
"Oh nonsense! When a cousin comes, you may take a holiday," urged the farmer; for he wanted Rose to go with him at once to Farmer Furche's, that the latter might entertain no hopes for his own daughter. Moreover he was aware that a little excursion of this kind does more to bring people together than a week's visit in the house.
John was silent; and the farmer in his urgency nudged him, and said in a half-whisper:
"Do you speak to her; maybe she will be more apt to do as you say, and will go with us."
"I think," said John aloud, "that your sister is quite right in preferring not to be driving about the country in the middle of the week. I'll harness my white horse with yours, and then we can see how they pull together. And we shall be back by supper-time, if not before."