penetration, did you know one thing? I took him out of pure spite, because you went off that time with Pinon? I had been angry with you for a long time, ever since that evening, — I don't know if you recollect it, — when you despised me."
"I? Never in the world!"
"Yes, you, surely you remember one evening when I fell asleep in the garden, and you came and picked me up, but dropped me like a hot potato?"
"Belette," said I earnestly, "let me tell you all about it."
"Don't trouble yourself," said she, "but how if it were to do over again?"
"I think that I should do just the same."
"What a mutton-head it is !" cried she. "But on my soul! I believe that is the reason why I loved you, — still I thought I would have some fun with you, after that; you deserved to suffer a little, and who could have thought that you would be fool enough to go away from the hook, instead of swallowing it?"
"Much obliged!" said I; "but hooks have sharp points to them."
She laughed, and looked at me in the old way under her lashes. Well, when I heard of your fight with that other blockhead, whose name I have forgotten, (I was down by the river washing
