The count is at the chateau."

"Has he asked for me?" said the steward's wife.

"No, madame; but he wants his trunk and the key of his apartment."

"Then give them to him," she replied, making an impatient gesture to
hide her real trouble.

"Mamma! here's Oscar Husson," said her youngest son, bringing in Oscar,
who turned as red as a poppy on seeing the two artists in evening dress.

"Oh! so you have come, my little Oscar," said Estelle, stiffly. "I
hope you will now go and dress," she added, after looking at him
contemptuously from head to foot. "Your mother, I presume, has not
accustomed you to dine in such clothes as those."

"Oh!" cried the cruel Mistigris, "a future diplomatist knows the saying
that 'two coats are better than none.'"

"How do you mean, a future diplomatist?" exclaimed Madame Moreau.

Poor Oscar had tears in his eyes as he looked in turn from Joseph to
Leon.

"Merely a joke made in travelling," replied Joseph, who wanted to save
Oscar's feelings out of pity.

"The boy just wanted to be funny like the rest of us, and he blagued,
that's all," said Mistigris.

"Madame," said Rosalie, returning to the door of the salon, "his
Excellency has ordered dinner for eight, and wants it served at six
o'clock. What are we to do?"

During Estelle's conference with her head-woman the two artists
and Oscar looked at each other in consternation; their glances were
expressive of terrible apprehension.

"His Excellency! who is he?" said Joseph Bridau.

"Why, Monsieur le Comte de Serizy, of course," replied little Moreau.

"Could it have been the count in the coucou?" said Leon de Lora.

"Oh!" exclaimed Oscar, "the Comte de Serizy always travels in his own
carriage with four horses."

"How did the Comte de Serizy get here?" said the painter to Madame
Moreau, when she returned, much discomfited, to the salon.

"I am sure I do not know," she said. "I cannot explain to myself this
sudden arrival; nor do I know what has brought him--And Moreau not
here!"

"His Excellency wishes Monsieur Schinner to come over to the chateau,"
said the gardener, coming to the door of the salon. "And he begs
Monsieur Schinner to give him the pleasure to dine with him; also
Monsieur Mistigris."

"Done for!" cried the rapin, laughing. "He whom we took for a bourgeois
in the coucou was the count. You may well say: 'Sour are the curses of
perversity.'"

Oscar was very nearly changed to a pillar of salt; for, at this
rev