etc. Helene, on the other hand, was incessantly telling her
new friend, whom she already looked upon as a sister-in-law, that she
was to be presented to _Madame_; undoubtedly the Duc de Verneuil would
invite her father and herself to stay at Rosembray; if the colonel
wished to obtain a favor of the king,--a peerage, for instance,--the
opportunity was unique, for there was hope of the king himself being
present on the third day; she would be delighted with the charming
welcome with which the beauties of the Court, the Duchesses de Chaulieu,
de Maufrigneuse, de Lenoncourt-Chaulieu, and other ladies, were prepared
to meet her. It was in fact an excessively amusing little warfare, with
its marches and countermarches and stratagems,--all of which were keenly
enjoyed by the Dumays, the Latournelles, Gobenheim, and Butscha, who,
in conclave assembled, said horrible things of these noble personages,
cruelly noting and intelligently studying all their little meannesses.

The promises on the d'Herouville side were, however, confirmed by the
arrival of an invitation, couched in flattering terms, from the Duc de
Verneuil and the Master of the Hunt to Monsieur le Comte de La Bastie
and his daughter, to stay at Rosembray and be present at a grand hunt on
the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth, of November following.

La Briere, full of dark presentiments, craved the presence of Modeste
with an eagerness whose bitter joys are known only to lovers who feel
that they are parted, and parted fatally from those they love. Flashes
of joy came to him intermingled with melancholy meditations on the one
theme, "I have lost her," and made him all the more interesting to those
who watched him, because his face and his whole person were in keeping
with his profound feeling. There is nothing more poetic than a living
elegy, animated by a pair of eyes, walking about, and sighing without
rhymes.

The Duc d'Herouville arrived at last to arrange for Modeste's departure;
after crossing the Seine she was to be conveyed in the duke's caleche,
accompanied by the Demoiselles d'Herouville. The duke was charmingly
courteous, he begged Canalis and La Briere to be of the party, assuring
them, as he did the colonel, that he had taken particular care that
hunters should be provided for them. The colonel invited the three
lovers to breakfast on the morning of the start. Canalis then began to
put into execution a plan that he had been maturing in his own mind for