fore he could hinder her, and pressed two velvet lips on it,
and was away again, her cheeks scarlet at what she had done, and her wet
eyes beaming with joy. She skimmed the grass like a lapwing; you would
have taken her at this minute for Rose, or for Virgil's Camilla; at the
gate she turned an instant and clasped her hands together, with such a
look, to show Raynal she blessed him again, then darted into the house.

"Aha, my lady," said he, as he watched her fly, "behold you changed a
little since you came out." He was soon on the high road marching
down to the town at a great rate, his sword clanking, and thus ran his
thoughts: "This does one good; you are right, my old woman. Your son's
bosom feels as warm as toast. Long live the five-franc pieces! And they
pretend money cannot make a fellow happy. They lie; it is because they
do not know how to spend it."

Meantime at the chateau, as still befalls in emergencies and trials,
the master spirit came out and took its real place. Rose was now the
mistress of Beaurepaire; she set Jacintha, and Dard, and the doctor,
to pack up everything of value in the house. "Do it this moment!" she
cried; "once that notary gets possession of the house, it may be too
late. Enough of folly and helplessness. We have fooled away house and
lands; our movables shall not follow them."

The moment she had set the others to work, she wrote a single line to
Riviere to tell him the chateau and lands were sold, and would he come
to Beaurepaire at once? She ran with it herself to Bigot's auberge, the
nearest post-office, and then back to comfort her mother.

The baroness was seated in her arm-chair, moaning and wringing her
hands, and Rose was nursing and soothing her, and bathing her temples
with her last drop of eau de Cologne, and trying in vain to put some of
her own courage into her, when in came Josephine radiant with happiness,
crying "Joy! joy! joy!" and told her strange tale, with this difference,
that she related her own share in it briefly and coldly, and was more
eloquent than I about the strange soldier's goodness, and the interest
her mother had awakened in his heart. And she told about the old woman
in the Rue Quincampoix, her rugged phrases, and her noble, tender heart.
The baroness, deaf to Rose's consolations, brightened up directly at
Josephine's news, and at her glowing face, as she knelt pouring the good
news, and hope, and comfort, point blank into her. But Rose chilled them