e you
quite as much as it has done me. Victorine is really engaged! The day
after the _Ralli de Papier_ it rained again, and as we were sitting in
the little salon after breakfast the old Baron was announced. He was
dressed in a frock coat and a tall hat, just as if it was Paris and the
height of the season. They made conversation for about ten minutes, and
then he got up and, putting his heels together, he said he had come to
request a private interview with Mme. la Comtesse Douairiere de
Croixmare, and Monsieur le Comte de Croixmare, son fils; upon which
Victorine looked coy, and began scrabbling with her toes on the paquet.
Heloise was not in the room, and Godmamma said to me that it was time
for our walk, as the rain had stopped, and Mdlle. Blanc ("the Tug")
would be waiting. So we bundled out of the room, and Victorine for the
first time became affectionate as we went upstairs.

"Il est venu pour demander ma main, pour son neveu, Monsieur de
Beaupre," she said, putting her arm round my waist; "J'espere que cela
ne vous chagrine pas, cherie?" And when I asked her why in the world it
should grieve _me_ she said that, as every one had noticed how I had
flirted with the Marquis, she supposed his preferring another girl
could not be quite pleasant! I could have screamed with laughter, if I
had not been so angry; I felt dreadfully tempted to tell her of the
Marquis's proposal to me, and why he was marrying her--only that would
have been playing down to her level of meanness. So I said that the
English idea of flirting and the French were different; that the
Marquis seemed to me to be quite an agreeable Frenchman, and no doubt
she would be very happy; and far from it grieving me, I was delighted
to think she would be settled at last, as twenty-two was rather on the
road to fixing St. Catherine's tresses. She dragged her arm away in
such a hurry that she scratched her hand on a pin that Agnes had
stupidly left in my belt. "Voyez! vous avez fait saigner ma main," she
said almost crying with fury. All I said was, "Qui s'y-frotte s'y
pique," and as we had got to the door of my room, I went off in fits of
laughter--she looked so like a cross monkey I could not help it!

[Sidenote: _Girlish Amenities_]

Well, you can think, Mamma, we did not have an agreeable walk. Victorine
talked in her most prudish goody style to "the Remorqueur," and never
addressed me; while poor Mademoiselle Blanc was so nervous trying to speak
to both