The woods were unusually still. Not a sound broke the delicious hush which lay over this summer's morning, when Fernande de Courson made her way stealthily through the tangled undergrowth, avoiding the trodden paths and the clearings, flitting in and out among the trees like some young elf at play. The mischievous light which was scarcely ever wholly absent from her eyes was more apparent to-day than it had ever been before. She was wearing a white dress; her arms and shoulders were bare, and on her way she had gathered an armful of bluebells, there where they grew thickest with long stalks and giant bells, on the fringe of the wood.
It was still very early in the morning, so early that the bluebells were dripping with dew, and the sun came slanting in through the trees, making the vivid green of tiny elm and birch leaves gleam like emeralds and suffusing the gummy tips of the young chestnut with a vivid crimson glow. The carpet of last year's leaves made a soft swishing sound under the girl's feet; from the branches overhead the birds peeped down on the intruder with quaint inquisitiveness in their tiny, beady eyes, and now and then there would come a louder rustle, a murmur through the trees as a frightened squirrel hopped from bough to bough, fleeing at the approach of the human foe. But the human foe, clad all in white, and with the morning sun touching her fair curls with living gold, did not pause in order to gaze up at white-throat or finch; she did not hearken to the call of the mating linnet, nor did she watch the squirrels in their flight. She had heard something last night which had caused her to rise very early this morning and to start out for a walk in the woods, armed with a sheaf of bluebells and a very arsenal of feminine wiles.
A week had gone by since she had pledged her faith that she would make the untamed bear of La Vieuville dance to her piping. Since then she had quietly but with marvellous perseverance studied the ground whereon she desired to lay her trap for the catching of the unwary beast. During that week she had had to endure some ridicule from her father, a few gibes from her aunt, and renewed scowls from Laurent. But she was not to be deterred, and none of her kinsfolk--not even Laurent--had the least idea what was going on in that young head, nor what mischief was brewing behind the mocking glance of her blue eyes.