He knew
she walked there daily before breakfast.
Mademoiselle des Touches and the marquise had gone, as it happened, to
see the marshes and the little bay with its margin of fine sand, where
the sea penetrates and lies like a lake in the midst of the dunes.
They had just returned, and were walking up a garden path beside the
lawn, conversing as they walked.
"If the scenery pleases you," said Camille, "we must take Calyste and
make a trip to Croisic. There are splendid rocks there, cascades of
granite, little bays with natural basins, charmingly unexpected and
capricious things, besides the sea itself, with its store of marble
fragments,--a world of amusement. Also you will see women making fuel
with cow-dung, which they nail against the walls of their houses to
dry in the sun, after which they pile it up as we do peat in Paris."
"What! will you really risk Calyste?" cried the marquise, laughing, in
a tone which proved that Camille's ruse had answered its purpose.
"Ah, my dear," she replied, "if you did but know the angelic soul of
that dear child, you would understand me.
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