"
"But don't you know Cathelineau is a saint, Jacques?"
"Oh! but you said saints might marry, and have a lot of children, and
so they may."
"But I never saw Cathelineau, Jacques," and she put her hand upon his
arm.
And you are not in love with him, Annot?"
"How can I be in love with a man I never put eyes on?"
"And you won't say again, that you'd like to have him for a lover?"
"That was only my little joke, Jacques. Surely, a girl may joke
sometimes."
"And you do love me, don't you?" and Jacques now got very close to his
mistress.
"Ah! but why did you let me walk home all the way by myself? You know
I love you dearly; but you must beg my pardon for that, before I'll ever
tell you so again."
And Jacques did beg her pardon in a manner of his own twenty times,
sitting by the gurgling mill-stream, and to tell the truth Annot seemed
well pleased with the way in which he did it; and then when the fountain
of her love was opened, and the sluice gate of her displeasure removed,
she told him how she would pray for him till he came back safe from the
wars; how she would never speak a word to mortal man in the way of
courting, till he came back to make her his wife; how she would grieve,
should he be wounded; how she would die, should he be killed in battle:
and then she gave him a little charm, which she had worked for him, and
put it round his neck, and told him she had taken it with her to St.
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