Miette worked away willingly.

Open-air life was her delight, her health.

So long as her aunt lived she was always smiling.

The good woman, in spite of her roughness, at last loved her as her own child; she forbade her doing the hard work which her husband sometimes tried to force upon her, saying to the latter: "Ah! you're a clever fellow! You don't understand, you fool, that if you tire her too much to-day, she won't be able to do anything to-morrow!" This argument was decisive.

Rebufat bowed his head, and carried the load which he had desired to set on the young girl's shoulders.
The latter would have lived in perfect happiness under the secret protection of her aunt Eulalie, but for the teasing of her cousin, who was then a lad of sixteen, and employed his idle hours in hating and persecuting her.