and the pretty little bridesmaids' dresses. The
bridegroom only she prudently omitted, and was sarcastically rebuked for
the omission by and by with the query, "And the bridegroom was nowhere,
then?"

The bells broke out several times in the course of the day, and the
event served for a week's talk after it was over. The projected
yacht-voyage had been given up, and the young people travelled in all
simplicity, with very little baggage and no attendant except Mrs. Betts.
They went through Normandy until they came to Bayeux, where Madame
Fournier was spending the long vacation at the house of her brother the
canon, as her custom was. In the twilight of a hot autumnal evening they
went to call upon her. Lancelot's watering-can had diffused its final
shower, and the oleanders and pomegranates, grateful for the refreshing
coolness, were giving out their most delicious odors. The canon and
madame were sipping their _cafe noir_ after dinner, seated in the
verandah towards the garden, and Madame Babette, the toil of the day
over, was dozing and reposing under the bowery sweet clematis at the end
by her own domain.

The elderly people welcomed their young visitors with hospitable
warmth. Two more chairs were brought out and two cups of _cafe noir_,
and the visit was prolonged into the warm harvest moonlight with news of
friends and acquaintances. Bessie heard that the venerable _cure_ of St.
Jean's still presided over his flock at Caen, and occupied the chintz
edifice like a shower-bath which was the school-confessional. Miss
Foster was married to a _brave fermier_, and Bessie was assured that she
would not recognize that depressed and neuralgic _demoiselle_ in the
stout and prosperous _fermiere_ she had developed into. Mdlle. Adelaide
was also married; and Louise, that pretty portress, in spite of the
raids of the conscription amongst the young men of her _pays_, had found
a shrewd young innkeeper, the only son of a widow, who was so wishful to
convert her into madame at the sign of the Croix Rouge that she had
consented, and now another Louise, also very pretty, took cautious
observation of visitors before admission through the little trap of the
wicket in the Rue St. Jean.

Then Madame Fournier inquired with respectful interest concerning her
distinguished pupil, Madame Chiverton, of whose splendid marriage in
Paris a report had reached her through her nephew. Was Monsieur
Chiverton so very rich? was he so very old and u