e will make an exception in
your favour. Advienne que pourra, you shall have your luggage."

Then in the kindest way he personally superintended the matter, delayed
the train until the luggage was found, and carried out sundry forms
necessary for the next day's journey.

We discovered very little in Narbonne to repay our change of plans, but
the hotel was comfortable and the energetic landlady a character worth
studying. Grass never grew under her feet. She seemed gifted with
ubiquity, and startled one by her rapid movements. A capable woman, who
made her little world work with a will, wound them up and set them
going. If the machinery flagged, she at once applied the master-key of
her energy, and the wheels went on again.

To-day she was on her mettle, as she informed us, having a large wedding
dinner on hand. "To-night was the _diner de contrat_, to-morrow the
_diner de noce_. A hundred and fifty people would sit down to it, and
she expected great conviviality."

Nor was she disappointed, if the noise we heard later on was any sign of
festive enjoyment. Loud laughter, applause, healths pledged, good wishes
bestowed--all indicated the state of the assembled guests.

Madame had taken us into the banquet-room to prove that she was capable
of decorating her table very effectively. Glass and silver glittered
under the rays of light; flowers perfumed the air; orange-trees stood in
corners, fruit and flowers mingled their delights. We asked for whom all
this extensive preparation.

"The daughter of an innkeeper, with a magnificent dowry, was marrying
one of the most popular doctors of the place. But it was really a
mariage d'amour, not merely de convenance. Les maries were both
delightful. One hardly knew which to congratulate the most. In short, it
was one of those rare events in life when the social sky is without a
cloud."

Madame was almost poetical in her enthusiasm. But she was no less
practical, and it was wonderful how everything went smoothly under her
guidance.

"Narbonne, famous for its honey." We seemed to remember this as one of
our geography lines in days gone by. "But where was the honey?" we asked
during the course of our own dinner, which madame was quite equal to in
spite of the greater ceremony on hand.

"You may well ask," placing upon the table a choice bottle of the
vin-du-pays, which she saw unsealed and uncorked by one of her officials
who had just been wound up again and was flying about t