combinations, as they walked along.

"Look there, little one--see that bunch of lily of the valley, with its
white bells, among those eglantines. What do you think? Wouldn't that be
pretty against a sea-green or pearl-gray background?"

But Sidonie cared no more for lilies of the valley than for eglantine.
Wild flowers always seemed to her like the flowers of the poor,
something like her lilac dress.

She remembered that she had seen flowers of a different sort at the
house of M. Gardinois, at the Chateau de Savigny, in the hothouses, on
the balconies, and all about the gravelled courtyard bordered with
tall urns. Those were the flowers she loved; that was her idea of the
country!

The little stations in the outskirts of Paris are so terribly crowded
and stuffy on those Sunday evenings in summer! Such artificial
enjoyment, such idiotic laughter, such doleful ballads, sung in whispers
by voices that no longer have the strength to roar! That was the time
when M. Chebe was in his element.

He would elbow his way to the gate, scold about the delay of the train,
declaim against the station-agent, the company, the government; say to
Delobelle in a loud voice, so as to be overheard by his neighbors:

"I say--suppose such a thing as this should happen in America!" Which
remark, thanks to the expressive by-play of the illustrious actor, and
to the superior air with which he replied, "I believe you!" gave those
who stood near to understand that these gentlemen knew exactly what
would happen in America in such a case. Now, they were equally and
entirely ignorant on that subject; but upon the crowd their words made
an impression.

Sitting beside Frantz, with half of his bundle of flowers on her knees,
Sidonie would seem to be blotted out, as it were, amid the uproar,
during the long wait for the evening trains. From the station, lighted
by a single lamp, she could see the black clumps of trees outside,
lighted here and there by the last illuminations of the fete, a dark
village street, people continually coming in, and a lantern hanging on a
deserted pier.

From time to time, on the other side of the glass doors, a train would
rush by without stopping, with a shower of hot cinders and the roar of
escaping steam. Thereupon a tempest of shouts and stamping would arise
in the station, and, soaring above all the rest, the shrill treble of M.
Chebe, shrieking in his sea-gull's voice: "Break down the doors! break
down the door