she were giving me a punishment, and here I was delighted at having them to look after. I used to lean my forehead against a cow's flank to get a better purchase, and I very soon filled my pail. At the top of the milk a foam used to form which caught all kinds of changing colours, and when the sun passed over it it became so marvellously beautiful that I was never tired of looking at it. Looking after the pigs never disgusted me. Their food was boiled potatoes and curdled milk. I used to dip my hands into the bucket to mix it all up, and I loved making them wait for their food a few minutes. Their eager cries and the way they wriggled their snouts about always amused me. When May came Master Silvain added a she goat to my flock. He had bought it to help Pauline to feed the little baby she had got after they had been married ten years. This goat was more difficult to take care of than all the rest of the flock. It was always her fault when my flock got into the standing oats, which were pretty high. The farmer saw what had happened and scolded me. He said that I must have been asleep in a corner while my sheep were trampling his oats down. Every day I had to pass near a wood of young pine trees. The goat used to get there in three jumps, and it was while I was looking for her that my lambs got into the oats. The first time I waited ever so long for her to come back by herself. I made my voice as soft as I could and called to her. At last I made up my mind to go and fetch her, but the young pines were so close together that I didn't know how to get after her. On the other hand, I could not go away without knowing what had happened to the goat. I thought I remembered the place where she had disappeared, and I went in there, putting my hands in front of my face to keep the thorns off. I saw her almost at once through my fingers. She was quite near me. I stretched my hands out to get hold of one of her horns, but she backed through the branches, which flew back and struck me in the face. At last, however, I got hold of her and brought her back to the flock. She began again next day, and every day she did the same thing. I got my sheep as far away as I could from the oats, and rushed after her. She was a white goat, and the first time I saw her I thought that she was like Madeleine. She had the same kind of eyes, set far away from each other. When I forced her to come out of the pine trees, she looked at me for a long time without moving her eyes, and I thought that Madeleine must have been turned into a goat. Sometimes I told her not to do it again, and I was quite sure that she understood me when I told her how unkind she was. As I was struggling out of the pine wood my hair fell all about me, and I shook my head to throw it forward. The goat sprang to one side bleating with fear. She lowered her horns and came at me, but I lowered my head and shook my hair at her. My hair was long and dragged along the ground. She rushed off, leaping