Everyone thought there was no great wonder in this. A young girl
leaving her own country for ever, to be the wife of a foreign prince
whom she had never seen, and could not tell whether she should like,
might well be in tears, Randolphe said. Had she cheered up yet?

"Yes, indeed," said Jerome, "that she has. When she saw the fine
pavilion on the frontier, she was pleased enough."

The boys wanted to hear about the pavilion.

"It was there," said Jerome, "that she was to be made a French princess
of. It was a very grand sort of tent, that cost more money than I can
reckon."

Randolphe sighed.

"There were three rooms," continued Jerome; "a large one in the middle,
and a smaller one at each end. In one of these smaller rooms she left
everything she had worn, even to her very stockings, and all her German
attendants; and then she went through to the other, where she found her
French attendants, and her fine French wardrobe."

"And shall we see her in some of her new clothes?" asked Marc.

"Certainly." And Jerome went on describing the princess's dress, and
told all he had heard of her jewels, and furs, and laces, till the
soldiers observed that their host had sighed very often. One of the
soldiers then said that it was enough to make poor men like themselves
sad to hear of such luxury, when they were hungry in the long summer
days, and cold all the long winter nights.

"What need you care?" said the host, somewhat bitterly. "You are
provided for by law, when we country people are ground down by it. You
come upon us, and must be served with the best, when we have not enough
for ourselves."

The third soldier declared that he thought this a very uncivil speech.
Jerome said that he, for his part, could dispense with civility in such
a case, when he happened to know where the truth lay. He assured
Randolphe that soldiers like himself were as little pleased with the
state of things as any countryman. They themselves were the sons of
peasants; and many had led a cottage life, and knew how to pity it. But
he must say, a soldier's life was very little better. The army could
not get its pay. Glad enough would soldiers be to save trouble to their
hosts, if they had a little money in their pockets; but pay was not to
be got, in these days, by soldiers, any more than if none was due to
them.

His smoking comrade thought there must be an earthquake somewhere in
France, swallowing up all the money: for nobo