to speak to you immediately."

"To me?"

"Yes; if you are Mademoiselle Elisabeth Rousset."

She hesitated, reflected a moment, and then declared roundly:

"That may be; but I'm not going."

They moved restlessly around her; every one wondered and speculated as
to the cause of this order. The count approached:

"You are wrong, madame, for your refusal may bring trouble not only on
yourself but also on all your companions. It never pays to resist those
in authority. Your compliance with this request cannot possibly
be fraught with any danger; it has probably been made because some
formality or other was forgotten."

All added their voices to that of the count; Boule de Suif was begged,
urged, lectured, and at last convinced; every one was afraid of the
complications which might result from headstrong action on her part. She
said finally:

"I am doing it for your sakes, remember that!"

The countess took her hand.

"And we are grateful to you."

She left the room. All waited for her return before commencing the meal.
Each was distressed that he or she had not been sent for rather than
this impulsive, quick-tempered girl, and each mentally rehearsed
platitudes in case of being summoned also.

But at the end of ten minutes she reappeared breathing hard, crimson
with indignation.

"Oh! the scoundrel! the scoundrel!" she stammered.

All were anxious to know what had happened; but she declined to
enlighten them, and when the count pressed the point, she silenced him
with much dignity, saying:

"No; the matter has nothing to do with you, and I cannot speak of it."

Then they took their places round a high soup tureen, from which
issued an odor of cabbage. In spite of this coincidence, the supper was
cheerful. The cider was good; the Loiseaus and the nuns drank it from
motives of economy. The others ordered wine; Cornudet demanded beer. He
had his own fashion of uncorking the bottle and making the beer foam,
gazing at it as he inclined his glass and then raised it to a position
between the lamp and his eye that he might judge of its color. When
he drank, his great beard, which matched the color of his favorite
beverage, seemed to tremble with affection; his eyes positively squinted
in the endeavor not to lose sight of the beloved glass, and he looked
for all the world as if he were fulfilling the only function for which
he was born. He seemed to have established in his mind an affinity
between the two great p