just try to be respectful," she said. "Count a little.
There are six of us forming the vanguard. In the chariot there are nine,
and six and nine make fifteen. Add to them the five of the rear-guard,
and we have twenty. Wherever else is such a family seen? Why, the
rabbits who watch us pass are mute with stupor and humiliation."

Then came another laugh, and once more they all took up the song of
Cinderella on her way to the palace of Prince Charming.

It was at the bridge over the Yeuse that the first drops of rain, big
drops they were, began to fall. The big livid cloud, urged on by a
terrible wind, was galloping across the sky, filling it with the clamor
of a tempest. And almost immediately afterwards the rain-drops increased
in volume and in number, lashed by so violent a squall that the water
poured down as if by the bucketful, or as if some huge sluice-gate had
suddenly burst asunder overhead. One could no longer see twenty yards
before one. In two minutes the road was running with water like the bed
of a torrent.

Then there was a _sauve-qui-peut_ among the procession. It was learnt
later on that the people of the rear-guard had luckily been surprised
near a peasant's cottage, in which they had quietly sought refuge. Then
the folks in the wagon simply drew their curtains, and halted beneath
the shelter of a wayside tree for fear lest the horses should take
fright under such a downpour. They called to the bicyclists ahead of
them to stop also, instead of obstinately remaining in such a deluge.
But their words were lost amid the rush of water. However, the little
girls and the page took a proper course in crouching beside a thick
hedge, though the betrothed couple wildly continued on their way.

Frederic, the more reasonable of the two, certainly had sense enough to
say: "This isn't prudent on our part. Let us stop like the others, I beg
you."

But from Rose, all excitement, transported by her blissful fever, and
insensible, so it seemed, to the pelting of the rain, he only drew this
answer: "Pooh! what does it matter, now that we are soaking? It is by
stopping that we might do ourselves harm. Let us make haste, all haste.
In three minutes we shall be at home and able to make fine sport of
those laggards when they arrive in another quarter of an hour."

They had just crossed the Yeuse bridge, and they swept on side by side,
although the road was far from easy, being a continual ascent for a
thousand yards or s