h, and Josephine,
who had scarcely taken the little telescope from her eye all the time,
exclaimed that she saw the wedding party going through the market-place
of the town.

"There they are--the musicians first; the bride and bridegroom next; and
eight friends, all two and two! There will be a dance, depend on it! Let
us go down to the town, and hear all about it! Perhaps they might invite
us to join them--who knows?"

"But you would not dance before dinner?"

"_Eh, mon Dieu_! I would dance before breakfast, if I had the chance.
Come along. If we do not make haste, we may miss them."

I rose, feeling, and I daresay, looking, like a martyr; and we went down
again into the town.

There we inquired of the first person who seemed likely to know--he was
a dapper hairdresser, standing at his shop-door with his hands in his
apron pockets and a comb behind his ear--and were told that the
wedding-party had just passed through the village, on their way to the
Chateau of Saint Aulaire.

"The Chateau of St. Aulaire!" said Josephine. "What are they going to do
there? What is there to see?"

"It is an ancient mansion, Mademoiselle, much visited by strangers,"
replied the hairdresser with exceeding politeness. "Worthy of
Mademoiselle's distinguished attention--and Monsieur's. Contains old
furniture, old paintings, old china--stands in an extensive park--one of
the lions of this neighborhood, Mademoiselle--also Monsieur."

"To whom does it belong?" I asked, somewhat interested in this account.

"That, Monsieur, is a question difficult to answer," replied the fluent
hairdresser, running his fingers through his locks and dispersing a
gentle odor of rose-oil. "It was formerly the property of the ancient
family of Saint Aulaire. The last Marquis de Saint Aulaire, with his
wife and family, were guillotined in 1793. Some say that the young heir
was saved; and an individual asserting himself to be that heir did
actually put forward a claim to the estate, some twenty, or
five-and-twenty years ago, but lost his cause for want of sufficient
proof. In the meantime, it had passed into the hands of a wealthy
republican family, descended, it is said, from General Dumouriez. This
family held it till within the last four years, when two or three fresh
claimants came forward; so that it is now the object of a lawsuit which
may last till every brick of it falls to ruin, and every tree about it
withers away. At present, a man and his wife hav