oat of jelly, her patties, her pears, her four bottles of
claret; and her fury suddenly subsided like the breaking of an
overstrung chord and she felt that she was on the verge of tears. She
made the most strenuous efforts to overcome it--straightened herself up
and choked back her sobs as children do, but the tears would rise. They
glittered for a moment on her lashes, and presently two big drops rolled
slowly over her cheeks. Others gathered in quick succession like water
dripping from a rock and splashed onto the ample curve of her bosom. She
sat up very straight, her eyes fixed, her face pale and rigid, hoping
that nobody would notice.

But the Countess saw her and nudged her husband. He shrugged his
shoulders as much as to say, "What can you expect? It is not my fault."
Madame Loiseau gave a silent chuckle of triumph and murmured, "She is
crying for shame." The two Sisters had resumed their devotions after
carefully wrapping up the remnants of their sausages.

Then Cornudet, while digesting his eggs, stretched his long legs under
the opposite seat, leaned back, smiled like a man who has just thought
of a capital joke, and began to softly whistle the Marseillaise.

The faces clouded; the popular air seemed unpleasing to his neighbors;
they became nervous--irritable--looking as if they were ready to throw
back their heads and howl like dogs at the sound of a barrel organ. He
was perfectly aware of this, but did not stop. From time to time he
hummed a few of the words: "Liberty, cherished liberty, Fight thou on
the side of thy defenders."

They drove at a much quicker pace to-day, the snow being harder; and all
the way to Dieppe, during the long, dull hours of the journey, through
all the jolting and rattling of the conveyance, in the falling shades of
evening and later in the profound darkness, he continued with unabated
persistency his vengeful and monotonous whistling; forcing his wearied
and exasperated fellow travelers to follow the song from end to end and
to remember every word that corresponded to each note.

And Boule de Suif wept on, and at times a sob which she could not
repress broke out between two couplets in the darkness.

MISS HARRIET

There were seven of us in a break, four women and three men, one of
which latter was on the box seat beside the coachman, and we were
following, at a foot pace, the broad highway which serpentines along the
coast.

Setting out from Etretat at break of da