As an explanation of it he remarked with his eyes twinkling more than usual: "I am getting old and need help about the place, and that is why a nephew and a niece of my brother-in-law Maillot have come to live with me."
Paul and Elise Durand were natives of "up north" and had never before been as far south as La Haye. The woman was about twenty-five years old, brown as a berry, with a sturdy figure and strong arms. Her brother was tall and slender. He said he was nearly twenty, yet he was small for his age and his entire innocence of any beard gave him a still more boyish appearance. He spoke with a softer accent than most country lads in those parts, but that was because he came from the neighborhood of Paris; and then he and his sister had both been in the service of a great "Seigneur" before the Revolution.
In the neighboring province of La Vendée the peasants, led by the priests and nobles, were threatening to take up arms in support of the monarchy. But the inhabitants of La Haye took little interest in political affairs, and although they shared somewhat the sentiment of opposition in La Vendée to the new government in Paris, they busied themselves generally with their vineyards and their crops and took no active part in politics. Paul and Elise were content in the fact that their new home was so quiet and so remote from the strife that was raging so fiercely all about them.
One morning, shortly after her arrival, Elise was resting by the stile which divided the field of Père Louchet from that of his brother-in-law. She had placed on the stile the bucket containing six fresh cheeses wrapped in cool green grape leaves, while she herself sat down upon the bottom step beside it, to remove her wooden sabot and shake out a little pebble that had been irritating her foot. The wooden shoe replaced, she took up her pail and was about to spring blithely over the stile, when she drew back with a little cry of surprise mingled with alarm. Standing on the other side, his arm resting on the top step, leaned a young man who had evidently been watching her closely.
Drawing a short pipe from between a row of white teeth, his mouth expanded in a wide grin.
"Did I frighten you?" he said, in a slight foreign accent but with an extremely pleasant tone of voice.
"Not at all," answered Elise, looking at him frankly. "I'm not easily frightened. If you will move a little to one side, I can cross the stile and go about my affairs."
"What have you in the pail?" asked the man, as he complied with her request.
"Cheeses," she answered, as he came lightly over the wall. "It's clear you're not of this part of the country or you would never have asked that question."
"I am not from this part of the country," said the stranger. "You ought to know that by my accent."