o take me home."

Camille and Beatrix exchanged an oblique glance, which Calyste
intercepted, and that glance sufficed to annihilate all the memories of
his childhood, all his beliefs in the Kergarouets and Pen-Hoels, and to
put an end forever to the projects of the three families.

"We can very well put five in the carriage," replied Mademoiselle
des Touches, on whom Jacqueline turned her back, "even if we were
inconvenienced, which cannot be the case, with your slender figures.
Besides, I should enjoy the pleasure of doing a little service to
Calyste's friends. Your maid, madame, will find a seat by the coachman,
and your luggage, if you have any, can go behind the carriage; I have no
footman with me."

The viscountess was overwhelming in thanks, and complained that her
sister Jacqueline had been in such a hurry to see her niece that she
would not give her time to come properly in her own carriage with
post-horses, though, to be sure, the post-road was not only longer, but
more expensive; she herself was obliged to return almost immediately
to Nantes, where she had left three other little kittens, who were
anxiously awaiting her. Here she put her arm round Charlotte's neck.
Charlotte, in reply, raised her eyes to her mother with the air of
a little victim, which gave an impression to onlookers that the
viscountess bored her four daughters prodigiously by dragging them
on the scene very much as Corporal Trim produces his cap in "Tristram
Shandy."

"You are a fortunate mother and--" began Camille, stopping short as she
remembered that Beatrix must have parted from her son when she left her
husband's house.

"Oh, yes!" said the viscountess; "if I have the misfortune of spending
my life in the country, and, above all, at Nantes, I have at least the
consolation of being adored by my children. Have you children?" she said
to Camille.

"I am Mademoiselle des Touches," replied Camille. "Madame is the
Marquise de Rochefide."

"Then I must pity you for not knowing the greatest happiness that
there is for us poor, simple women--is not that so, madame?" said the
viscountess, turning to Beatrix. "But you, mademoiselle, have so many
compensations."

The tears came into Madame de Rochefide's eyes, and she turned away
toward the parapet to hide them. Calyste followed her.

"Madame," said Camille, in a low voice to the viscountess, "are you not
aware that the marquise is separated from her husband? She has not seen
her so