n
only son, who is so dear to us too."

All around them the approach of the _dejeuner_ hour was now throwing the
house into commotion. Every door was banging, and the passages and the
staircase resounded with the constant pitter-patter of feet. Three big
girls passed by, raising a current of air with the sweep of their skirts.
Some little children were crying in a neighbouring room. Then there were
old people who seemed quite scared, and distracted priests who,
forgetting their calling, caught up their cassocks with both hands, so
that they might run the faster to the dining-room. From the top to the
bottom of the house one could feel the floors shaking under the excessive
weight of all the people who were packed inside the hotel.

"Oh, I hope that it is all over now, and that the Blessed Virgin will
cure him," repeated M. Vigneron, before allowing his neighbours to
retire. "We are going down-stairs, for I must confess that all this has
made me feel faint. I need something to eat, I am terribly hungry."

When Pierre and M. de Guersaint at last left their rooms, and went
down-stairs, they found to their annoyance that there was not the
smallest table-corner vacant in the large dining-room. A most
extraordinary mob had assembled there, and the few seats that were still
unoccupied were reserved. A waiter informed them that the room never
emptied between ten and one o'clock, such was the rush of appetite,
sharpened by the keen mountain air. So they had to resign themselves to
wait, requesting the waiter to warn them as soon as there should be a
couple of vacant places. Then, scarcely knowing what to do with
themselves, they went to walk about the hotel porch, whence there was a
view of the street, along which the townsfolk, in their Sunday best,
streamed without a pause.

All at once, however, the landlord of the Hotel of the Apparitions,
Master Majeste in person, appeared before them, clad in white from head
to foot; and with a great show of politeness he inquired if the gentlemen
would like to wait in the drawing-room. He was a stout man of
five-and-forty, and strove to bear the burden of his name in a right
royal fashion. Bald and clean-shaven, with round blue eyes in a waxy
face, displaying three superposed chins, he always deported himself with
much dignity. He had come from Nevers with the Sisters who managed the
orphan asylum, and was married to a dusky little woman, a native of
Lourdes. In less than fifteen year