The Story of the Peasant Girl and Her Grandmother

Marie was a capital little guide and storyteller, for her grandmother had told her all the tales and legends of the neighborhood. The romance of Gilder Burtain was one of her favorite; how he carried off his child-white when she was only twelve. But the story she liked best of all was about the peasant girl and her grandmother. They were shot because it was feared they would burn the chateaus. A long drought parched the whole country that summer,. and the gardens suffered much, especially the little plats and layout on the steep hillside behind the huts. Unless it rained, water had to be carried out from the stream below.