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Young Hardy had thought of the Vivandière, of the Fille-du-Regiment, when he looked at her. He could not have told you why. Was it the sauciness, that was not wanton, of the repose of her hands upon her hips? the unconsciously crossed leg when standing? the cock-billed hat, or tam-o'-shanter, that made you feel the need of music? the fixed gaze that was not staring but pensive? the sudden change of attitude that was like the cloud shadow upon a rose on which the sun had rested? What had all this to do with the Vivandière? But Hardy had got the word and the idea into his head, and when he thought of her at sea 'twas as though she was walking with a regiment with a little barrel of cordial waters upon her back.

Again he looked up the road and then down the road; he could hear a cart in a lane that ran parallel, but nobody was visible. He was beginning to wonder what he was to do—whether he had the physical strength to carry this fine girl in his arms four miles, that is, to his father's house—when she sighed, stirred like an awakening sleeper, sighed again, and opened a pair of gray eyes full upon his face.