that a foreign army should trouble its quiet that Touraine
might be said to defy invasion.

As soon as the caleche stopped, a head covered with a foraging cap was
put out of the window, and soon afterwards an impatient military man
flung open the carriage door and sprang down into the road to pick a
quarrel with the postilion, but the skill with which the Tourangeau was
repairing the trace restored Colonel d'Aiglemont's equanimity. He went
back to the carriage, stretched himself to relieve his benumbed muscles,
yawned, looked about him, and finally laid a hand on the arm of a young
woman warmly wrapped up in a furred pelisse.

"Come, Julie," he said hoarsely, "just wake up and take a look at this
country. It is magnificent."

Julie put her head out of the window. She wore a traveling cap of sable
fur. Nothing could be seen of her but her face, for the whole of her
person was completely concealed by the folds of her fur pelisse.
The young girl who tripped to the review at the Tuileries with light
footsteps and joy and gladness in her heart was scarcely recognizable in
Julie d'Aiglemont. Her face, delicate as ever, had lost the rose-color
which once gave it so rich a glow. A few straggling locks of black hair,
straightened out by the damp night air, enhanced its dead whiteness,
and all its life and sparkle seemed to be torpid. Yet her eyes glittered
with preternatural brightness in spite of the violet shadows under the
lashes upon her wan cheeks.

She looked out with indifferent eyes over the fields towards the
Cher, at the islands in the river, at the line of the crags of Vouvray
stretching along the Loire towards Tours; then she sank back as soon as
possible into her seat in the caleche. She did not care to give a glance
to the enchanting valley of the Cise.

"Yes, it is wonderful," she said, and out in the open air her voice
sounded weak and faint to the last degree. Evidently she had had her way
with her father, to her misfortune.

"Would you not like to live here, Julie?"

"Yes; here or anywhere," she answered listlessly.

"Do you feel ill?" asked Colonel d'Aiglemont.

"No, not at all," she answered with momentary energy; and, smiling at
her husband, she added, "I should like to go to sleep."

Suddenly there came a sound of a horse galloping towards them. Victor
d'Aiglemont dropped his wife's hand and turned to watch the bend in the
road. No sooner had he taken his eyes from Julie's pale face than
all the