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XIV
The Return to the Farm
AT the end of fifteen minutes they had left the heath behind them. They trotted along the highroad, and the gray whinnied at each familiar object. Petit-Pierre told his father as much as he could understand of what had passed.
"When we reached the farm," said he, "that man came to speak to my Marie in the fold where we had gone to see the pretty sheep. I had climbed into the manger to play, and that man did not see me. Then he said good morning to Marie, and he kissed her."
"You allowed him to kiss you, Marie?" said Germain, trembling with anger.
"I thought it was a civility, a custom of the place to new-comers, just as at your farm the grandmother kisses the young girls who enter her service
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