nguished guests whose unlucky star led them
into this deserted country.

That evening the inn presented an unaccustomed lively appearance; the
long seats, each side of the door, were occupied by rustics stripping
hemp, by some village lads, and three or four cart-drivers smoking short
pipes as black as coal. They were listening to two girls who were singing
in a most mournful way a song well known to all in this country:

"Au chateau de Belfort
Sont trois jolies filles, etc."

The light from the hearth, shining through the open door, left this group
in the shadow and concentrated its rays upon a few faces in the interior
of the kitchen. First, there was Madame Gobillot in person, wearing a
long white apron, her head covered with an immense cap. She went from
oven to dresser, and from dresser to fireplace with a very important air.
A fat little servant disappeared frequently through the dining-room door,
where she seemed to be laying the cover for a feast. With that particular
dexterity of country girls, she made three trips to carry two plates, and
puffed like a porpoise at her work, while the look of frightened
amazement showed upon her face that every fibre of her intelligence was
under unaccustomed tension. Before the fire, and upon the range, three or
four stew-pans were bubbling. A plump chicken was turning on the spit,
or, rather, the spit and its victim were turned by a bright-looking boy
of about a dozen years, who with one hand turned the handle and with the
other, armed with a large cooking-ladle, basted the roast.

But the two principal persons in this picture were a young country girl
and a young man seated opposite her, who seemed busily engaged in making
her portrait. One would easily recognize, from the airs and elegance of
the young woman, that she was the daughter of the house, Mademoiselle
Reine Gobillot, the one whose passion for fashion-plates had excited
Mademoiselle de Corandeuil's anger. She sat as straight and rigid upon
her stool as a Prussian corporal carrying arms, and maintained an
excessively gracious smile upon her lips, while she made her bust more
prominent by drawing back her shoulders as far as she could.

The young painter, on the contrary, was seated with artistic abandon,
balancing himself upon a two-legged chair with his heels resting against
the mantel; he was dressed in a black velvet coat, and a very small Tam
O'Shanter cap of the same material covered the