e day in the holidays at home. You'll
find our house is very pretty, there's sofas and cushions no end.
But you must not put off, for we shall be off to the seaside
soon."

At this moment a servant, a tall, thin man, appeared in the
playground and called out something which the shrill cries of
their companions at play prevented the two seated on the wall
from hearing. A fat boy, standing by himself with his face to
the wall with the unconcern born of long familiarity with this
form of punishment, clapped his two hands to his mouth trumpetwise
and shrieked:

"Ewans, you're wanted in the parlour."

The usher marched up:

"Garneret," he ordered, "you will stand half an hour this evening
at preparation speaking when you were forbidden to. Ewans, go
to the parlour."

The latter clapped his hands and danced for joy, telling his friend:

"It's my mother! I'll tell her you are coming to our house."

Servien reddened with pleasure, and stammered out that he would
ask his father's leave. But Ewans had already scampered across
the yard, leaving a dusty furrow behind him.

Leave was readily granted by Monsieur Servien, who was fully
persuaded that all boys admitted to so expensive a school born of
well-to-do parents, whose society could not but prove advantageous
to his son's manners and morals and to his future success in
life.

Such information as Jean could give him about Madame Ewans was
extremely vague, but the bookbinder was well used to contemplating
the ways of rich folks through a veil of impenetrable mystery.

Aunt Servien indulged in sundry observations on the occasion of
a very general kind touching people who ride in carriages. Then
she repeated a story about a great lady who, just like Madame
Ewans, had put her son to boarding-school, and who was mixed up
in a case of illicit commissions, in the time of Louis-Philippe.

She added, to clinch the matter, that the cowl does not make
the monk, that she thought herself, for all she did not wear
flowers in her hat, a more honest woman than your society ladies,
false jades everyone, concluding with her pet proverb: Better
a good name than a gilt girdle!

Jean had never seen a gilt girdle, but he thought in a vague way
he would very much like to have one.

The holidays came, and one Thursday after breakfast his aunt
produced a white waistcoat from the wardrobe, and Jean, dressed
in his Sunday best, climbed on an omnibus which took him to the
Rue de Rivoli.