St. Michael's Night

CHAPTER I.

IN the province of Normandy, on a bend in the coast line, forming a snug harbor for the little seaport, is, as all the world knows, the small town of Dieppe. An odd, ill-paved place it is, with its long line of quai, where the fisherwomen, in their high Norman caps and short petticoats, clack to and fro in their sabots, and drive their bargains over piles of shining fish. In the centre of the town is the market-place. On one side is the stately front of the ancient Hàtel de Ville, that, with its closed windows and dismantled balconies, appears to be brooding over its former days of splendor, indifferent, in the gloom of its sombre shadow, to the stir of modern life that hums about the thresholds of the tall gabled houses flanking the square on the opposite side.

In the centre of the market-place stands the huge figure of a cavalier in bronze, the redoubtable Admiral Duquesne, who gazes with eternal hauteur on the crowd beneath, his back turned with profane indifference to the old church of St. Jacques, that, beautiful with pinnacle and buttress, and depth of Gothic shadow, gathers the houses of the town about it, as a bird gathers her young beneath her wings. High on the cliffs stands the ancient Citadelle, one tall tower guarding with protective vigilance the clustering houses of the town ; and the other ending the long line of battlements looking seaward, — a friendly beacon to the distant fishing-boats. The high street winds like an indolent river through the middle of the town, joined by its tributary side streets, and leads at last into the Faubourg de la Barre, with its pretty, old-fashioned houses enclosed in high garden walls, above which rise tall hollyhocks and the fragrant spikes of the lilac-trees. From the Faubourg you ascend by a lane, in spring-time sweet as an Arcadian way with violets, to the cliffs; and the sea lies before you on one side, and the fair land of Normandy on the other, — Normandy, with its golden cornfields, and rich farms and deep orchards. — with its lanes where the sea-breeze meets you sweetened by the breath of innumerable primroses thatshine out from the hedges, — with its quiet villages and ruined chateaus,— the land of ancient fairy-tale, the land of history and romance. For if about the woods and valleys still linger the gentle memories of “La Chatte Blanche ” and Cinderella, so the chateaus and the ancient churches of the coast are haunted by the restless figure of the Conqueror, the statedpresence of Matilda, or the gigantic shade of the qreat Charlemagne himself.

There is a little river that rises in the distant hills somewhere, and that deep and rapid glides on between its banks, bright with a thousand flowers, to the sea. What a long tale it might tell you, if you had the gift to understand it! On its banks grow tall reeds, crowned with diadems of pink blossoms; and meadow-sweet that raises its fragrant plumes above a tangle of briony and wild-rose and honeysuckle ; while down in the shadow of their taller companions float like a mist myriads of blue forget-me-nots. Not wild and garrulous is this river, but full and tranquil, gliding on amid its flowers with meditative sweetness, — now passing through the gardens of quiet villages, receiving the image of homestead and church - spire with placid indifference, and now darkened by the shadow of the sombre ruined bridge that tradition says the Romans threw across its waters more than eighteen centuries ago. You will cross this river, if you follow the narrow path over the cliffs for three miles or so, on your way from the town to the little fishing-village of Pourville. All these three miles you walk knee-deep in grass and flowers, or breast-high in waving corn, catching sudden glimpses of the blue sea above the golden ears, and listening to the long roll of the waves that break at the foot of the cliffs. As you near the village, the pathway descends to the shore ; and here, in a break in the cliff line, the river I speak of crosses your path. Standing on the narrow wooden bridge that spans its waters, you can watch it as, breaking suddenly from its meadows and whispering reeds, it rushes down swift and dark, and meets the sea with tumult and struggle, as if loath to mix its sweet waters with the salt waves. Here, just at the confluence of waters, and nestling under the cliffs, is the cluster of houses that forms the hamlet of Pourville.

The village now is almost deserted. The few inhabitants that remain are poor people, and their life is one long struggle with the sea which rolls ceaselessly at their thresholds, and which as a treacherous friend feeds them from its waters, and at times, leagued with the wild equinoctial gales, rolls up a devouring flood and sweeps their homes into its depth. Twice during the memory of those living have many houses been swept away; but, actuated either by the recklessness that the presence of continual danger seems to inspire, or by the tenacious local affection peculiar to people whose calling binds them in intimate fellowship with Nature herself, a few of the fisher-people have rebuilt their homes on the same ledges of the cliffs ; the men pursue their hazardous calling in the treacherous waters of the bay, and the children play far down the beach, at low tide, beyond calling of their mothers. Partly from the misfortunes that have attended it. or from the gloomy shadow of the cliff under which it always rests, Pourville has got a bad name in the country round. “C’est maudite, cette villagelà ! ” said a peasant woman, with whom I had joined company as I walked over the cliffs. “Cursed,” I said; “how so ? are the people bad or smugglers ? ” “ Not at all. They are good, honest people, but it is the good God who has cursed them, I suppose ! ” and she crossed herself with consistent piety. Indeed, there is a saying on the coast, “ Pour se faire pêcheur à Pourville, mieux vaut être filleul d’une fée que d’un évêque.”¹

But there must have been kind and hospitable hearts at Pourville at one time, for in the dark days of the Fronde, we are told, the Duchess de Longueville, finding all her endeavors to win over the authorities of Dieppe to the party of the king in vain, escaped by night from the Citadelle, and fled with a few faithful attendants to Pourville, where she was lodged and entertained by the curé, who, without knowing the name and rank of his guest, received her, as a chronicler tells us, “ avec toute l’effusion d’une charité chrétienne.” One is glad to learn also, from the same narrator, that this effusion of Christian charity was not without its reward. The hospitable curé was remembered by his grateful duchess, and a benefice of a thousand francs was added to his cure.

Half a mile inland, on one of the wooded hills that rise above the river, is the castle of Pourville. It is little more now than one ruined tower, and is as mysteriously hidden in its woods as the fairy palace of “The Sleeping Beauty.” Indeed, the narrow, untrodden pathway, that winds on and on under the low beech boughs and leads up to the castle, is only to be found by careful search ; and often, after walking for a mile or more through the woods, you will see the tail tower of the castle rising from the woods on the opposite side of the valley.

Seven miles farther up the coast, and dimly discernible, a mere black speck on the cliff line, is the church of Verangeville, standing at the very edge of the cliff, and seeming to lean towards the sea. It is very old, and round it are gathered the graves of many generations. But the encroaching sea has drawn stealthily nearer and nearer year by year, dragging down with every winter storm the foremost portions of the cliff; and each passing generation has seen the old church nearer the edge, till now the people, fearful that at some chance hour the undermined foundation may give way, and the church sink into the waves below, a “ Verlorene Kirche ” of the sea, have deserted it, and left it to its solitary watch alone. There is a pathway that leads to the church, ascending abruptly from the shore by rude steps worn in the chalky rock, and that passes round the bare precipitous face of the cliff till it opens on the graves of the little churchyard. At high tide the waves roll up to these steps, and as you stand upon the narrow ledge you feel the vibrations of their buffetings. The lustrous level of the sea lies below, the wide sky above, — the dim line of horizon, where they meet, your nearest boundary line, and the far-off fishingboats the only things that speak of human sympathy. The towering wall of cliff beetles over your head. A host of flowers that have crept down trom the fields above nod their innocent heads from the crevices, and open their delicate blossoms in the face of the great sea, and shower forth their tiny seeds in autumn to the wild winds, in the dim grand faith of nature, that “He who holdeth the ocean in the hollow of his hand ” will also find a resting-place for these tender germs he has created. Now, says tradition, at certain times of the year, at the hour of nightfall, a fairy passes up this narrow pathway, and, meeting any solitary traveller wending his way homeward, she raises her hand in passing and pronounces mysterious words of prophetic significance, assuring him of either bliss or bane ; and the traveller passes onward after this weird greeting, with his heart filled with visions of happy love and fortune, or with forebodings of woful doom. A singular instance of the truth of this tradition, — though I may as well own that it is the only one that has come positively authenticated to my knowledge, — I am with your good pleasure about to relate.

Verangeville, as I said, lies in the mouth of the little valley of the Saane where it opens on the sea. The scattered houses of the village creep up one side of the cliff towards the deserted church that crowns the highest point. In such an irregular and straggling community as this, the lowest and the highest house become remarkable as landmarks, and we will take them also as central points in our story. A hundred yards or so below the deserted church stands the highest house in Verangeville. Here lived with his daughter, in the year 18—, Père Defére, a well-to-do fisherman owning his house and bit of land, and his boat, — the ownership of the latter of itself implying a position of independence. Defére had always had the name of being a shrewd man who understood his craft, and, it was thought, had laid by money. Behind the house was a little orchard and paddock ; and before it lay a sunny garden, sweet-scented, and bowery with luxuriant creepers. The little pathway leading from the garden gate to the door of the cottage was lined with flowers, roses, wall-flowers, and sweet-scented stocks. The porch itself was rude enough, with rough wooden steps and unpainted door ; but from the doorway, the humble dwellers, passing in and out, had a picture before them worthy the eyes of kings ; for there beyond the garden and a narrow slope of meadow grass lay the sea, through all the varying hours of day and night, in its ever-changing beauty. To Jeanne Defere this vision blended itself with all the occupations of the day. She looked upon it as she began her work in the tender light of the summer dawn, or at midday passing in and out preparing the dinner. She saw it shining like a silver shield in the heat of noon ; at evening, when the work was done, and she had made ready the supper and awaited her father’s coming, shading her eyes from the level splendor of the sunset, she watched it deepening from rose to violet, till it faded into the solemnity of the gathering twilight. There lay the sea ! changing in beauty with the rolling hours, in sunshine and storm, by day and night, in peace and tumult, joining its voices to the great anthem of the heavens that declare the glory of God.

The nearest neighbor to the Deféres was old Widow Lennet. With her lived her daughter and her daughter’s husband, — Foulet. Old Madame Lennet was a well-conditioned, merry-faced woman, who had taken life easily, and had been well treated by Time in consequence. From time immemorial the Lennets and the Deféres had been neighbors and friends. Many a black wooden cross in the churchyard of Verangeville marked the graves, and craved the prayers of the faithful for the souls of departed Deféres ; and Lennets for generations had lived in the little stone house before the great sandbank appeared below Pourville ; and the good saints only know when that was ! — at any rate, it was at a sufficiently remote period to show that the Lennets were no “new people.”

There had always been a stall in the weekly market of Dieppe, and the baskets of fish packed by old Madame Lennet and her daughter and son-inlaw were amongst the best that left the town for Rouen and Paris. At the present time the name of Lennet was unrepresented among the fishermen of the coast.

True, Madame Lennet had a son, at this time some thirty-three or thirty-four years of age ; but either from a restless desire to rove, which infests persons born or reared near the sea. or from a belief that better fortune could be found away from the little fishing-village, and the calling of his ancestors, Pierre Lennet, when he grew to man’s estate, discarded the fishing craft, and took a place on a schooner bound for the West Indies, and was thenceforward a wanderer. The first voyages that the renegade fisherman made had by no means justified him in his choice ; and the wayward fortune that he followed never turned to smile on him, poor fellow! He had been wrecked again and again, had been captured by pirates, lost his money, and, in fact, suffered every sort of maritime ill. But Pierre was not daunted by his ill fortunes ; he came back to his mother’s cottage after his voyages little changed, except that he might be somewhat broader across the shoulders, a shade darker in hue, his beard thicker, but with as kind a heart and as loud and merry a laugh as before. And somehow, through all his losses, whether he had been wrecked or robbed, it rarely happened that he had not saved the gay handkerchief or the parrot that were to delight those at home ; and his mother’s cottage at Verangeville was filled with a curious store of these gatherings of the wandering sailor. It is true, Madame Lennet, after the first paroxysm of joy over her son on his return, never failed to quarrel heartily with him on the subject of the fishing business, and the eternal bêtise of this fancy of his of going to sea. But Pierre always went back to sea, nevertheless, and had his own arguments in defence of his conduct also. Was not brother-in-law Foulet a better fisherman than he ? and was he not as kind and good to her as if he had been her own son ? Some time or other Cousin Farge would retire from the business in Dieppe ; then, of course, Foulet would take it, and he and sister Marie would go and live in Dieppe ; then would be the time for him (Pierre) to return home, and settle down in the old house with his mother. Would there not always be fish in the sea for him to catch ? At present he would stay as he was ; he liked the sailor life ; and if the Devil did blow with every wind upon one at sea. one had not always had such good luck on shore either. And in saying this Pierre laughed an uneasy laugh, and his good mother sighed, and shook her head softly, and gazed tenderly upon her son from her round brown eyes. Madame Lennet, during that shake of the head, was arraigning a culprit before the bar of her imagination, and for the moment the peaceful warmth that glowed in her bosom towards all the world was disturbed with bitter thoughts. “Yes, yes,” says Madame Lennet, “ thus is it! the Sainte Écriture says that a man will leave father and mother and all, and hold to his wife; and indeed who has anything to say to the contrary? but man Dieu ! when a girl has no eyes to see, no heart to feel, and will not be his wife, where is the reason then in his leaving father and mother, brother and sister, to sail, sail, sail eternally, to lose his life upon the sea ! ”

Far down below the rest of the village, on a ledge in the cliffside, stood the lowest house in Verangeville. It was just raised out of danger of the lapping waters of high tide, but was splashed by the wild spray on every stormy night. It was a lonely, desolate dwelling; the little enclosure before the door was full of drifted sea-weed and shingle, and wild sedge and rank grass grew between the stones. The lives of the dwellers here seemed to accord with the loneliness of their wild nest, for they were both widow women, — Veuve Milette and her daughter Épiphanie Coutelenq. Madame Milette had also a son. François Milette, who was a young man of three-and-twenty at the time I speak of, had been at home only about six months since his last voyage, and had now begun the fishing business. Certain ugly suspicions had always rested upon the father Milette, and years ago every one had owned that Madame Milette had done wisely in persuading her husband to send François, when quite a boy, to sea. “ What good could come to a lad at home, with such a father as Milette ? Did he not take the boy out on the rocks with him at night, though his mother might weep away all the tears of her body, and beg for him on her knees ? For what does one go on the rocks at night ? Ay, indeed for what ? Go and ask monsieur the coast guard that.” So it was very well, everybody said, that the lad had been sent to sea; as for the girl it didn't matter, she had always been quiet enough, and after Milette’s death she married Coutelenq and made a better marriage than any one could have expected for her ; and though she had been left a widow so early, still she had changed her name, which she might be thankful for; and now that François, since his return, had done so well in the fishing business, Veuve Milette might begin to hold up her head again. In fact, the “world” of Verangeville was a little hard on the Milettes ; Milette had had a bad name, and people were quick to visit his sins upon the innocent heads of his survivors. But it is good to think that there are always champions raised up to the defenceless; in this case it was so, at any rate. Jeanne Defére, who could have chosen any girl in the village for her friend, and conferred an acknowledged honor by the choice, had always avowed a friendship for Épiphanie Milette (for since her widowhood she had borne her maiden name), and many a battle had she fought in her defence.

But now that we have discussed her neighbors, let us say something of Jeanne herself.

CHAPTER II.

JEANNE’S mother died in her infancy, whereupon her father’s eldest sister came to live with him and take charge of the motherless child. Under her care Jeanne had grown up to womanhood. As she entered her nineteenth year her aunt died, after a long and weary illness of nearly two years, during which time, of course, the care of the little household and the nursing of her aunt had fallen upon Jeanne ; and perhaps it was to these years of care and responsibility that she owed a certain resolution and gravity of character that gave her a tacitly acknowledged influence among the young girls of the village. Jeanne had, moreover, a warm and generous heart, a little overlaid by prejudices, which, in a person of strong nature and narrow education, have almost the force of passions. Jeanne was not a beauty after any petite type ; her figure was strongly proportioned, and the certain grace that distinguished her carriage was owing more to strength of limb and dignity of character than litheness or slightness of figure. Her face was somewhat sedate too; and her deep gray eyes had little of melting softness of expression, being more distinguishable for a free and open glance, as became one who had grown up from childhood meeting the gaze of the great blue sea with fearless love. But her lips had an abiding sweetness in their gravity that was lovelier than the smiles of others; at least, so thought Gabriel Ducrés. He had looked on her fair face autumn by autumn when he came from his inland home to Dieppe to negotiate the sale of the lavender crop, and had gone back each succeeding season, finding the love, first born in childhood, sending its roots down deeper and spreading its branches wider in his heart, till it promised to overshadow his whole life for joy or sorrow. For, you see, Gabriel was her kinsman ; a distant one, to be sure, but Jeanne had so few relations that the intimacy with her great-aunt’s family had always been cherished ; and almost every summer Jeanne had been in the habit of spending some time at the lovely inland village where the Ducrés farm was situated. And every autumn her uncle Ducrés or Gabriel, — for, during the last three years Gabriel had taken his father’s place, — when he came to Dieppe on the lavender business, stayed at the high house in Verangeville, and from thence made his expeditions into the town.

One of Jeanne’s earliest memories was of riding before her aunt on her tall Normandy donkey, through endless cornfields, a long day’s journey, to pay one of these visits to the Vallée d’Allon. She remembered the tall, stout figure of her great-aunt Ducrés, in her high Norman cap and scarlet petticoat, standing in the doorway ready to welcome them as they arrived. She remembered how the size of the rooms in the comfortable farm-house struck her childish mind as something magnificent; for her great-uncle Ducrés was a wealthy farmer, and her aunt a thrifty manager, and, though the house was quaint and old-fashioned, even for a Norman farmhouse, there were many signs of comfort strange to the eyes of the child, accustomed to the rude simplicity of a fisherman’s cottage.

Jeanne’s annual visit to the Vallee d’Allon was paid in the early summer, when the freshness of spring was blooming into the full flowery beauty of the Norman June. Then the lavender fields were in blossom, and the air was filled with the delicate and pungent perfume of their tender colored spikes.

The sweet, long summer days passed tranquilly, Jeanne taking part in all the pleasant pastoral duties of the country life. The morning and the evening milking, the churning, and the hay-making, not to speak of the daily feeding of fowls and turkeys, and sleek and shining ducks, as well as the innumerable pigeons, that, at the first glimpse of the portly figure of Madame Ducrés, would leave sunning themselves on the redtiled roof, and sweep down, cooing in a sort of ecstatic contentment, and sail round her white cap, and even flutter down upon her outstretched hand.

Jeanne helped her aunt also in her gardening. The garden before the house was bright with a thousand flowers, — sweet-scented stocks and wreathing honeysuckle and clematis, rosebushes that spread their sheets of blossom, crimson and pink and snowy, in the sweet June weather. To Jeanne these roses had always associations of sacredness and awe ; for on the eve of every Trinity Sunday her aunt cleared her rose-bushes of their beautiful flowers to serve at the great festival of the following day.

On that day the mass was performed in the open air at a household altar erected for the occasion, and all the way by which the procession came from the church to the temporary shrine was strewn with flowers. Jeanne as a child had walked sedately with Gabriel behind her uncle and aunt, bearing her basket of roses, and looking like an infant St. Elizabeth. She remembered the solemn waiting by the roadside till the procession came up ; the far-off chanting voices growing ever louder as the procession, with its richly vested priests, its white-robed choristers with their twinkling lights and swinging censers drew nearer ; the great silken banner, from which the benignant figure of the Madonna swayed to and fro above the crowd; the incense rising in the sunny air, and mixing its sacred perfume with the breath of the roses. She remembered her aunt leading her forward, half dizzy with awe and excitement, to throw her roses before the feet of the foremost priest, and her glimpse of the blazing star borne in the upraised hands, struck by the full morning sunlight, before which they all prostrated themselves. She remembered how they had then risen from their knees and joined the multitude, all like themselves dressed in their bright holiday garb, and followed the procession, chanting as they went. So to Jeanne the scent of roses seemed always blended with the perfume of incense, and she never decorated her bodice with them but on the fêtes of the Madonna; and she usually wore at home a bunch of the lavender blossoms, gathered from the little garden that lay before the cottage at Verangeviile ; for with its delicate scented spikes were connected all the pleasant associations of the fragrant lavender fields at her uncle’s in the Vallée d’Allon.

Gabriel, who was some years older than his cousin, had regarded her in these earlier years of companionship with the feeling of superiority usual in boys ; but, although lie patronized and tyrannized over his small companion himself, he magnanimously allowed no one else the same privilege, and always stood Jeanne’s champion in all childish troubles, even when it had brought him into collision with Monsieur le Curé himself. This had happened on one memorable occasion, when Jeanne, radiant with zealous faith in its miraculous efficacy, was found sprinkling a poor kitten that had had fits with water from the porch stoup.

But as years went on, the relative position of the two had undergone an inevitable change. Jeanne no longer regarded her young kinsman with unquestioning devotion ; she now looked upon him as a très bon garçon, — and why, indeed, should he not be, seeing he was Aunt Ducrés’s son? — good-looking, too, strong and active. Could he not row a boat, ay, and haul a net, as well as any sailor in Verangeville, though he was a farmer ? Helas ! For Jeanne had been brought up to believe in the utter superiority of a fisherman’s calling, and to look with some degree of contempt upon the less enterprising and more careful life of a farmer.

This unlucky inland calling hung like a shadow over the fate of Gabriel in consequence. Jeanne’s was a simple and healthy nature, that matured slowly, and love such as Gabriel sought would be its latest fruit. Her affections sprung from habit, and were nourished by association. She loved her own home and the sea, her family, her aunt Ducres, towards whom she bore a tender reverence, and, lastly, she loved Gabrielfor many excellent reasons of course, which she usually summed up in saying he was a “ bon garcon et mon parent, vous comprenez.” Indeed, if it had not been for the unlucky fact I mentioned before, that Gabriel’s plain destiny was the life of a farmer, no doubt that — But then there would never have been this story to tell.

For two years Jeanne had not been to the Vallée d'Allon, for during her aunt’s illness her presence had been too necessary at the bedside of the poor invalid to allow of her leaving home. But in the August of the following year, after her aunt’s death, she paid the long-promised visit, and took up once more the old life and its many occupations in the pleasant old farm-house. Jeanne’s visit this year was later than usual, and she was to return with Gabriel at the close of the next month, when he made his annual visit to Dieppe. It was just harvest-time; the corn stood piled in sheaves in the field. All day the wagons, swaying heavily with grain, wound along the high hedged lanes ; and at evening the reapers with faded bunches of the scarlet poppy in their hats, and sickles slung across their shoulders, moved homeward by the light of the crescent harvest moon, singing as they went. Though the great lavender field on the Ducrés farm was now shorn of the fair lilac-blossoms that in June tinted its slope with a soft haze of color delicate as a morning cloud, more lovely — if that may be — than the royal purple of the distant heather, still in the small field the rows of young lavender plants were now in the full glory of their fragrance and beauty.

These young lavender plants during the first two years of their growth, before they attain maturity, require constant care. Six or seven times during the summer they have to undergo pruning. And often in the warm still afternoons or in the cool of the evening, the little household, with some of the neighbors to bear them company, would gather in the field and work at the pruning, a stream of lively talk mingling pleasantly with the clicking of their shears as they passed slowly down the lavender lines.

CHAPTER III.

ONE pleasant evening, Jeanne, unhooking a pair of shears from the kitchen wall, walked briskly down to the beds of young lavender plants. She went down to finish a row she had left in the morning. It was hardly growing dusk yet, and Jeanne’s figure in its scarlet petticoat, moving among the bushes, was discernible at some distance. It was not long before Gabriel came up, whistling blithely, as be strode through the field, his shears slung over his shoulder.

“I have come to help thee with thy row, Jeanne,” he said ; “let me finish it, and do thou sit down and rest awhile.”

“ O,” said Jeanne, “ I'm not tired. Do thou clip on one side, Gabriel, and I ’ll clip on the other, and we shall soon have done!”—which was going a little beyond Gabriel’s designs ; he wished rather to prolong the task than to shorten it. However, he began the work.

“ I never like to clip off all these young shoots,” said Jeanne, “it seems such waste to leave them withering and drying on the ground ; why, I took home from the prunings, last time I was here, enough to scent all the drawers and the great linen chest; and when I open them to take anything out, it smells just like the Vallée d’Allon, and I can shut my eyes and fancy I am quite a little, little child again.”

“ Thou shalt have an armful of the full blossoms this year, Jeanne ; there’s enough and to spare. We have never had such a crop except the great year when my father made five hundred francs by the field. Thou wast with us then, Jeanne ; thou bringest good luck to us always.”

Jeanne looked up smiling. “May be, but more likely the pruning and the good saints, I think.”

“ Perhaps,” said Gabriel, slowly, and with a surmisable want of faith.

“ I am very glad about the crop being good,” said Jeanne; “it always makes Aunt Ducrés happy when the lavender is fine.”

“ Yes,” replied Gabriel, absently; and then after a pause, during which the shears worked with energy, “ My mother will be loath to part with thee. Jeanne, thou seemest so much like a daughter to her.”

Jeanne sighed. “How I wish you all lived at Verangeville,” she said; “ we could have two large fishing-boats then; thou wouldst have made a good fisherman, Gabriel, hadst thou lived by the sea.”

There was no reply to this, and the shears clipped on in concert for several minutes. At last Gabriel asked abruptly : “Who is Pierre Lennet, Jeanne ? ”

“Pierre Lennet!” said Jeanne, in a tone of surprise, — “Pierre Lennet is a fisherman, —or no, not a fisherman, a sailor of our village ; he is first mate of a steamer now that runs between Dieppe and Newhaven.”

“Yes, yes; but I mean who is he, what is he like?” interrupted Gabriel.

“ Like!” said Jeanne ; “ I don’t know; he is no longer a boy, he is thirty — let me see, Pierre is always eleven years older than I—he is thirty-four. Thou hast seen him perhaps, — a tall, broad man with a pleasant countenance and a loud laugh.”

“ Thou knowest him then well,” said Gabriel.

“ To be sure,” said Jeanne, “ ever since I can think; their house is near ours. Madame Lennet and my aunt were great friends. Pierre was always kind to me when I was a child ; but why dost thou ask, Gabriel ? Hast thou seen Pierre?”

“ No, no, but I have heard of him,” said Gabriel, meaningly.

“ O, without doubt! ” said Jeanne, with sudden satisfaction at having discovered, as she supposed, the reason of Gabriel’s interest in Pierre. “Thou hast heard of his saving a man from drowning. He was just ready to be drowned, when Pierre sprang from the rocks, and swam and swam, and dived, and caught him. O, it was well done ! We stood on the rocks and watched him ; and when he dragged the man up, they all shouted a grand vive for Pierre (for a good many of the neighbors had gathered by that time); and because our house was nearest, they brought the man there, and laid him on the nets on the floor near the fire, for he was quite still and insensible ; and when he revived they laid him in father’s bed, and Pierre stayed with him till morning. Poor man! he was an Englishman, a sailor from a coal ship, and he had slipped from the edge of the cliff and fallen into the water, and being stunned with the fall could not swim to save himself; and Pierre, understanding a little English, that he had learned from the sailors in the docks, got to know this little by little, as the man tried to make him understand. Was not that what thou heardest of Pierre, Gabriel?”

“Was that all?” said Gabriel.

“ All! ” said Jeanne ; “ why what more wouldst thou have ? It is no light matter to bring a man out of the water who is heavy and lifeless, on a dark night. The man had a wife and children,” she continued, “and Pierre sailed a voyage in a coaler to the place in England where the man lived, and the woman came down to the quay to thank him, and she shook hands with him so often, as they do to make one understand what they cannot say ; — but, Gabriel, thou art cutting so badly ; thou hast clipped that bush almost to the ground!”

“ What does it matter, Jeanne ? ” said Gabriel; “but tell me, I have heard of this Pierre, that he is always at your house, and with thee at the fête, and — and — is this true? Jeanne, is this true ?”

“Bêtise!” said Jeanne, looking up with her clear eyes into Gabriel’s ; “ what dost thou mean, Cousin Gabriel ? Dost thou suppose I am going to many Pierre Lennet? Should I not have told you, if it had been so ? I tell Aunt Ducrés everything.”

To this straightforward assurance, Gabriel responded by suddenly placing himself at Jeanne’s side by one bound over the intervening lavender-bushes. What he was about to blurt out his eager gesture could only give a clew to ; for Jeanne, standing with her shears still open in the act of clipping, turned upon him, shears and all, and with some decision said : “ Thou mightest have known, Gabriel, I should never chatter about such things among the neighbors. It is only a fool who lets his affairs be talked of in the street, and it is only a fool who picks up his news there also,” said Jeanne, with some warmth; for Gabriel’s persistent questions seemed to perplex and irritate her. “When I think to marry, I shall tell those who ought to know, after I have related it to Monsieur le Curé; and,” she continued with sudden grave sweetness, seeing that her blunt speech had wounded. “ thou mayest be sure, Gabriel. I shall tell thee as soon as I would my brother.”

At which promised privilege Gabriel groaned in impatience and bitterness ot spirit. Whether in the simple desperation of his annoyance he might not have pushed the subject to its close there is no knowing, but Madame Ducrés’s cheery voice announced her coming, and all chance of further têteà-tête was at an end. This conversation took place a few days before Jeanne’s departure home.

After this Gabriel was busy in the fields all day long, and saw little of Jeanne, who remained in the house with his mother at work on a new dress. This was a parting gift from Aunt Ducrés, and Jeanne was to wear it for the first time at the approaching fête of St. Michael, when the peasants and fisher-people stream into Dieppe from the villages of the coast, to take part in the celebration in the great church of St. Jacques. Gabriel was to accompany his cousin on her journey home, and to stay at her father’s house, as I said before ; going thence into Dieppe to negotiate the sale of his lavender, and to make the usual yearly purchases for the farm.

Madame Ducrés loaded Jeanne’s donkey with her own hands ; there was butter and fresh cream, cheese, and a pair of newly killed chickens, for Jeanne to take as a present to her father. In the other pannier were Jeanne’s little bundle of clothes, and the new robe de fête, carefully wrapped in a clean napkin. Gabriel stood at the door, receiving his mother’s last injunctions. “Adieu, my son,” she said, as he stood bareheaded, awaiting her benediction, and stooped his tall figure to receive her kiss; “ God bless thee, and give thee what thy heart most desires ! ” Gabriel glanced quickly at Jeanne, who was feeding her donkey with a bunch of clover-blossoms, a last taste of the Vallée d’Allon ; then he turned, and took up his slick and bundle, and swung it over his shoulder. Attached to the bundle was a large sheaf of lavender, which he had selected himself for Jeanne’s use and behoof, as he had promised to do. The two women kissed each other affectionately; the elder taking the fair face of the younger between her two palms, and kissing her on either cheek. There were large tears in the upturned eyes that met Madame Ducrés’s.

“ Que Dieu te garde, ma fille,” she said, “and bring thee safely to me again. ’ Then Jeanne sprang on her donkey. “Take care of the butter, my child,” cried Madame Ducrés from the doorway; “ see that it does not get melted by the sun; cover it with fresh leaves as you go along; tell Cousin Defére that the cheese is the best I have made this year. Adieu, my son ; adieu, Jeanne ; adieu!” and she watched them as they passed down the lane, Jeanne, mounted among her possessions, turning at the bend of the road to wave a last farewell; and Gabriel, walking at her side, with his bundle of lavender swinging over his shoulder as he strode along.

CHAPTER IV.

THE first two or three days of Gabriel’s visit at Verangeville were taken up with his business in the town, and on an evening Jeanne always stayed in the house, and bore her father company, while the old man sat mending his nets and listening to her accounts of her visit to Valide d’Allon. Sometimes acquaintances would drop in, — girls from the neighboring cottages, — ostensibly to see Jeanne, but more probably to get a sight of the new robe de fête that Jeanne had brought back from her aunt’s with her, and possibly also to observe the stranger youth from the inland. Whether through the contrariety of circumstances or through instinctive caution on the part of Jeanne I cannot say, but so it was that Gabriel and she were seldom alone together during these days ot his visit. The hours passed pleasantly enough to Gabriel, for Jeanne, busy though she was, shed through the room the continual light of her presence. There was an indefinable satisfaction in the thought of coming back from fishing with the old man, or from the longer journeys into Dieppe, with the sweet certainty of finding her there, passing to and fro in the room, cooking the supper, or rosy and warm over her ironing; and, whatever her occupation might be, with always a face of pleasant welcome for him. But when night came, and he went to his little room at the rear of the cottage, very perplexing and troublesome thoughts would arise. Then, seating himself against the side of the little bed with its neat patchwork quilt, and with his feet pushed out before him (for the ceiling was too low to allow of his pacing to and fro in the way usual with heroes under trying circumstances), he would go over all the events of the day, and find the result perplexingly unsatisfactory. Here were the days he had looked forward to and longed for already nearly slipped away, and he was no nearer to happiness or certainty than when Jeanne had held him at the point of her shears that evening in the lavender field. In a few days would come the fête, when they would all go to Dieppe to the celebration. He went over in fancy the journey thither, the walk through the town with Jeanne, the beautiful ivory ornament he would buy for her, how they would stroll down to the Plage together, and then — but then came the sudden thought of Pierre Lennet. Would he not be there also ? Without doubt. Had he not heard Jeanne that very morning telling a neighbor that “ Pierre Lennet would be in Dieppe for the fête ; he had told her so the other evening, when he dropped in while father and Cousin Gabriel were down laying the nets”? And Jeanne had never said a word about that same visit at the time ! Why was that ? And how was it that he, Gabriel, should never have been able to catch a glimpse of the man who seemed to be forever about the place and never there ? Old Defére was continually talking of Pierre Lennet: it was “Pierre told me this, Pierre said that,” — everything was “ Pierre ” ! One hates to have one name dinned forever in one’s ears. To the Devil with Pierre Lennet! And Gabriel sprang suddenly to his feet, bringing his head against the ceiling with a sharp rap, which caused a parenthesis in his reflections, after which we will not follow them further.

One evening after he had been out for several hours helping the old man with his net-laying, Gabriel, returning just as it was getting dark, walked up the sandy lane that led to the Defére cottage. As he neared the little gate at the end of the garden he heard the click of the latch, and some one came out and walked slowly towards him. It was a man, who, with his head bent down, was humming in a low tone as he went. At the moment of passing Gabriel he raised his eyes, and the two men regarded each other with some earnestness through the gathering darkness, but passed on without the usual friendly greeting common among country people. In the dusk of the evening Gabriel could not distinguish the man’s features; but the loose, swinging gait, and the general air of the whole figure, showed him at once to be a sailor.. Jeanne was standing in the garden, half hidden among the clustering rose-bushes, as Gabriel entered. She turned quickly toward him as he neared her, and said, with some constraint in her voice, “ O Gabriel! is it thou ? I thought — I — I am glad thou hast come ; supper is nearly ready. Is my father coming ? ”

“Yes, he is on the way; but — hast thou not had company, Jeanne ? I met —some one.” He was just about to say the obnoxious name, but stopped short.

“No,” said Jeanne, “he has gone; there is no one here.”

“ Who was it, Jeanne ? ” said Gabriel, desperately and point-blank.

“ Pierre Lennet,” replied she, quietly, and turned into the porch, followed by Gabriel filled with smouldering jealousy and wrath. He seated himself, and leaned moodily with his elbows on the table, while Jeanne went to the fireplace, and busied herself over her preparations for supper. Jeanne’s face, as she entered the kitchen, wore a troubled expression; but as she continued her work, stirring her pan of haricots, and turning over the fish that, already cooked, were sending forth a savory odor, her face cleared. To Jeanne work was exhilarating, and tonight the supper fulfilled her requirements of excellence. It was pleasant. too, to see Gabriel again ; and, when her father came in, they could all sit down, and over their meal talk of the approaching fête.

“ I have been so busy all day,” said Jeanne, still busy at work over the fire. “Epiphanie Milette came in this afternoon, and asked me to take her baby while she went up to Monsieur le Curé’s to clean his rooms and mend his clothes for the week. Monsieur le Curé is old, and Épiphanie thought the baby might disturb him, thou seest, and her mother was not at home this afternoon, so I took him ; and then I had to clean and sweep the house myself, because I likealways to leave all in order before the fête. And the child was very good, and lay on the floor and laughed and crowed at me until he grew sleepy. So then I fed him, and put him to sleep, as Epiphanie did not come; and I was afraid he might be frightened if he woke in a strange place, so I wrapped him up warm, and took him in my arms and ran down all softly to the Milettes, and laid him on the bed with his grandmother, who had come home by that time. With all this I had nearly forgotten the supper, and I had to work so hard to get all ready in time ; for when I came in — ” Jeanne stopped abruptly, and Gabriel looked up.

“Well, Jeanne, Pierre Lennet was here, I suppose. What of him ? why dost thou stop ? Go on,” he said, bitterly; “ tell me all. Thou saidst I should know when thou promisedst thyself. I can tell my mother when I get back; it will be pleasant news to take her. It is not well, thou knowest, to pick up news on the street, and thou hadst best tell me of thy betrothal before I hear it there.”

Jeanne had turned towards him with her pan of potatoes in her hand. She was pricking them gently with a fork, to test their softness. She changed color, and looked at him almost entreatingly. “ Mais done, Gabriel, why dost thou torment me ? I have told thee once I do not want to talk of Pierre Lennet : why wilt thou not let him rest?”

“Listen, Jeanne,” pleaded Gabriel; “ I do not mean to torment thee, but — ”

“ Thou dost torment me,” said Jeanne; “and,” she continued quickly, as if desirous of saying at once what she meant, “ thou shouldst not meddle, Gabriel, when thou seest persons desire to be silent; it is not good du tout, du tout!” And, after this not certainly very reassuring sentence, Jeanne turned resolutely to the work of setting supper on the table; and, as Gabriel persisted in maintaining a gloomy silence, she directed her talk to her father, who had by that time come in, and left Gabriel to himself to enjoy the smoking potatoes and savory fish, seasoned by his own cogitations.

CHAPTER V.

THE following day was a gloomy and unsatisfactory one to Gabriel. He was watching and waiting for something to happen that would throw light upon the visit of Pierre Lennet the evening before, or for some relenting sign on the part of Jeanne, when he could settle the matter by direct appeal to her once more. He was, moreover, beginning to experience the effects of his long holiday. He was restless and dissatisfied, as people of industrious Habits are apt to be when obliged to do nothing.

What was the good, he asked himself impatiently, of lounging about the house, watching Jeanne busy at her work? And yet if he did go out with Père Defére, and help the old man with his fishing, it was one degree worse than being in the kitchen with Jeanne. He could not do the work, he could not listen to the old man’s talk, for thinking of what might be going on up at the cottage. Who knew but that Pierre Lennet at that moment was paying one of his secret visits ? (for secret Gabriel persisted in considering them ;) and at this thought, he was ready to spring from the boat and swim ashore, in his impatience to satisfy his raging suspicions. To-morrow was the fête, and after that he must return to Vallee d'Allon, — but not without an answer one way or another, he said to himself, with a sudden burst of vehement determination, wringing his fur cap, which he had been twirling listlessly in his hands during his cogitations.

That evening Jeanne brought out a large basket of apples to the doorway, and, sitting down on the steps, began to peel them. Gabriel followed her slowly, and leaned up against the lintel, looking with contracted brows from under the rim of his cap. Round went the rosy shining apples in the girl’s fingers, the long unbroken peeling curling slowly to her lap.

“There is a long strip,” said Jeanne, holding it up ; “ shall I try thy fortune for thee?” and putting one end between her lips, she swung it lightly over her shoulder, letting it fall on the step just at his feet. “See now what shape it takes. Look, it is an M. M is for Matelot or Marin, — is it not? It should have come F instead. Ah ! I always said thou shouldst have been a sailor! ”

“ But I am a farmer, nevertheless,” said Gabriel.

Jeanne sighed, without knowing why.

There was a pause for some moments. Gabriel watched a long piece of peeling as it unwrapped itself from the apple, and, wavering over the active fingers, sank tremulously down.

“Jeanne ! ”

Jeanne looked up, a little startled by the tone.

“ Listen to me a moment, Cousin Jeanne; to-morrow is the fête, and I may not have a chance to speak to thee at all; who knows? and after that I go home.” Jeanne dropped her hands into her lap, and looked at him inquiringly. “Thou dost not know what has been the wish of my mother’s heart this many a year,” said Gabriel, beginning at the wrong end of his argument, tor Jeanne’s calm look disconcerted him.

“ Aunt Ducrés ! ” bean Jeanne. “ I would do for her all — everything, I think, I love her so — but—Gabriel !” — she wavered and paused, startled by the expression that leaped into his eyes at her words.

“Jeanne, I have loved thee these five years, and hoped and hoped that thou wouklst yet be my wife. The good saints know I speak truly, when I say I never thought of any girl but thee. Uncle Defére is willing, he has said as much ; thou lovest my mother, and she loves thee as a daughter; the old house is big enough for us all, if thou thinkest about leaving thy father. O Jeanne, sois donc ma femme!”

He had thrown himself down on the step beside her, and was looking up with a pale face and burning eyes, for both love and despair were in his heart. Jeanne sprang suddenly to her feet, crying quickly and passionately, “ No, no ! Are we not happy as we are ? Why should I be thy wife ? I always said my husband should be a sailor. I cannot marry thee du tout, du tout, du tout!” The last words had brought him to his feet.

“ Dost thou think thyself better than my mother ? To be a farmer’s wife was good enough for her; but thou must be a sailor’s wife. I comprehend. Who is the man,” he continued, fiercely, “ that shall take thee from me ? Who is it, I say ? ” And he seized her arm. Jeanne looked at him, her eyes bright with angry tears.

“ I will be forced to answer thee no questions that thou askest in that way; thou art not thyself, Gabriel ; if thou hadst been a sailor,” she continued, “ thou wouklst have spent thy ill-humor in fighting with the sea, and not in Illtreating those whom thou pretendest to love!” She pushed his hand away, and, seizing her basket, walked quickly into the house. She went on with the work of setting the supper-table ; but the burning tears forced themselves from her eyes, and rolled heavily over her cheeks. Her father came up from the shore, bearing a basket of fish ; and Jeanne, seeing him toiling up the pathway, pressed the tears from her eyes, and hastened down to help him.

“ A good haul,” said the old man, — “ a good haul; but the best are still to be caught, an’ Our Lady will, to-night. Thou wilt have a fine lot to take in with thee to Dieppe, when thou goest to the fête, my daughter. Pierre Lennet said that his cousin Jean, who has the stall in the market, thou knowest, would take what we can get this week ; and a fine stall he will have if the rest be like these, and the Madonna give us a fair night ! ”

Jeanne took the baskets of fish, and walked silently up the hill. She looked eagerly as she neared the porch ; but Gabriel was not there. Some of the apple-peeling lay on the ground where they had stood confronting each other. She stooped and picked it up, and passed in at the door, expecting to find Gabriel at the supper-table ; but he was not there.

When her father had finished his supper, and the room glowed with the light of the setting sun, and no Gabriel appeared, Jeanne began to wonder and surmise.

41 Where is Cousin Gabriel ? ” called her father from the garden, where he was hanging his nets to dry, to Jeanne, who was putting away the supperthings.

“ I don't know,” replied she ; “maybe he’s gone down to the Robbe’s for a while.”

“ Ai ! ” said the old man ; “ most likely he wanted to talk to the boy there about buying those shells that he got from the Genoese sailor. Gabriel set his heart on them for his mother. A good son. that,” the old man continued to himself, — “ a good son ! Aunt Ducrés would make a good mother to Jeanne; if he were only a sailor all would go well. Ei, ei ! a sad thing is an inland life ; you toil and toil at the same thing ; you put in your seed, and down comes your storm, or your sun burns up the young blades and, pfui! le diable is always on the spot. Xow a fisherman’s life is something. — with the aid of the good saints, a prosperous good calling ; with simply to set your nets and catch the fish, so the Madonna will; and on such a coast as this, with herring as thick as the sand on the shore, and a good St. Pierre always at hand, mon Dieu ! who would prefer an inland life? And yet it would be well to see Jeanne married, and content, too, — with no boy to take one’s place, and go on with the fishing after one is dead. One might as well sell the old boat, and so make a handsome dot for Jeanne. And, after all, it might not be so bad to end one’s days on the inland.”

Jeanne finished her household work, laid out her father’s thick coat for the night’s expedition, trimmed the lantern, and prepared some food for him to take with him ; and then, when all was done, she sat down wearily, wondering over the scene of the last two hours, which seemed to be separated from the present moment by a long period of painful perplexity, such as she had never known before. She was weary of the house, and a restless desire for movement seized her. She rose, and, turning the key in the door, pursued her way up the sandy lane leading to the deserted churchyard and the open clifis. She walked with her eyes cast down on the ground ; but she neither stooped to pick the thyme, which sent up its delicate perfume from the pressure of her firm footsteps, nor the broad-eyed daisy, over whose prophetic leaves the girls were wont, in happy indifference or pleasant perturbation of spirit, to repeat the old rhyme : —

Leaning from the churchyard wall, she looked out over the sea, on which lay the yellow light of the fading sunset. Far away gleamed the white sails of a group of fishing-boats, lying motionless in the dead calm. She stood till the light died away in the sky, and the fishing-boats became mere black specks in the gloaming; but she was hardly conscious of any change in what was before her. A distant call, followed by its attendant echoes, broke the stillness, and made her start.

Three men, with their nets and baskets, were descending to the shore by a pathway down the opposite cliff, which was separated from the one on which Jeanne stood by a small bend on the sea-line. One man had reached the shore, and turned to call to his companions. Jeanne recognized her father and his partner, Robbe, and Francois Milette, who were about to start on their fishing expedition, and run out with the tide. Suddenly recalled to the present, and aware of the gathering darkness, she turned, and walked hastily down the pathway, pausing a moment, on the steps of the tall churchcross, to commend her father and his nets to the care of the holy and vigilant St. James.

Just as she reached her own door, her neighbor, Marie Robbe (daughter to the old man who accompanied her father), greeted her. She was lounging idly against the gate-post. She started forward eagerly, on seeing Jeanne, and accosted her with volubility.

“ Ai, Jeanne Defére ! is that thou ? and where hast thou been ? I have been waiting here so long, I thought the fée du Fallaise must have run off with thee. I want to talk with thee about the fête to-morrow. Wilt thou go along with us ? Listen a little to my plan, my friend. Thou wilt have a basket of fish to take, and so shall I. Now I detest to ride with fish to a fête; and in one’s new petticoat and bodice, with ruban de soie and leather shoes, it is not to be supported. And to smell of fish, like a Polletaise, among all the gay folks! As for thee, every one knows thou wilt be fine as a peacock with the dress thy aunt Ducrés gave thee. — too good to be smirched with fish-scales, I say.

“Well, Marie, and what about it? I am going to take the fish, dress or no dress, I tell thee.”

“ Certainly; did I say anything to the contrary ? Wait a bit, and I will tell thee. Let us put our fish together on my donkey, and we will ride by turns on thine. That is the way, to my mind, to go to a fête, not hedged up with baskets, like Voisine Legros, who thinks more of selling her fish than of the sainte fête itself. Grace a la Madonne ! I am not avaricious, I.”

“ As thou wilt,” said Jeanne. “ What time do you start ? ”

“ By half past four, I suppose,” said Marie. “It’sa full ten miles across the cliffs, thou knowest. We shall be a brave company. Ah ! if it were not for this maudite tide that takes the men out fishing. Frangois Milette went out with thy father to-night, pauvre gars ! it won’t be pleasant for him over his nets to-night to fancy me at the fête to-morrow, I promise you! Then, indeed, what must he go for to-night ? I know some one who will be glad enough to take his place in Dieppe to-morrow, if that stupid gars is fool enough to go to sea. Thou shouklst have seen his face as he went down past our gate this evening, when I was standing with thy cousin, Gabriel Ducrés ! ”

“Ai! ” said Jeanne, somewhat sharply ; “ is Gabriel at your house ? ”

“ Not now, he has gone to town ; he said he had some business that must be seen to to-night. Thou, of course, knowest what it is, — eh, Jeanne ? ” Then, as Jeanne vouchsafed no reply, she continued: “I was sitting at the gate with Pauline, talking about to-morrow, and he came past, walking with his head bent down, and looking as if he had the world on his shoulders, and l’ enfer on his heart, as Monsieur le Curé says the impenitent sinners have. Pauline called to him, and asked him where he was going, and he said, all quickly and confusedly, ‘To town.' ‘Mais, ma foi! ’ she said, ‘ to-night, Gabriel Ducrés! You wish, no doubt, to be in time for the office to-morrow; — you are pious indeed!’ and she laughed, and I whispered, ‘ Take care thou dost not get an evil greeting from the fairy on the way ; she is abroad such nights as this,’ and just at this moment François passed and saw me ; and, ah ! was he not jealous, jealous, jealous ? ” she repeated, in a little exultant rapture. “ For Gabriel Ducres is a beau garcon without doubt, and a good dancer too. I always say that of thy cousin, Jeanne,” added the wily little coquette, who was calculating on her words being repeated to the beau garcon by his near relative.

“Gabriel cares little for what thou sayest,” said Jeanne, bluntly, “nor do I either; and as for François, he is too good for thee altogether, and it would but serve thee right if thou shouldst lose his heart through thy bêtise ! If thou choosest to share my donkey tomorrow, thou canst; but I am busy now, and thou hadst best go home, for it is getting late.” And Jeanne turned resolutely into the gate, to close all further conference.

“ Mais voilà donc ! what airs one gives one’s self ! " said Marie Robbe, making her round black eves still rounder in her amazement. “Francois too good for me ! well, to be sure ! but without doubt she thinks of him for herself—the quiet one! Ah, that is it! Grâce à la Madonne, je ne suis pas jalouse, moi ! ” and she ran off thinking of her dress for the morrow, and the good figure she would make on entering the town.