ittle station of Giffas, on the other side of the Rhone.

"Come, come, embrace me, my dear mamma. There's no shame in hugging
your boy, whom you haven't seen for years, close to your heart.
Besides, all these gentlemen are friends of ours. This is Monsieur le
Marquis de Monpavon, and Monsieur le Marquis de Bois-l'Hery. Ah! the
time has gone by when I used to bring you to eat bean soup with us,
little Cabassu and Bompain Jean-Baptiste. You know Monsieur de
Gery--he, with my old friend Cardailhac, whom I introduce to you, make
up the first batch. But others are coming. Prepare for a terrible
how-d'ye-do. We receive the bey in four days."

"The bey again!" said the good woman in dismay. "I thought he was
dead."

Jansoulet and his guests could but laugh at her comical alarm,
heightened by her Southern accent.

"But there's another, mamma. There are always beys--luckily for me,
_sapristi_! But don't you be afraid. You won't have so much trouble on
your hands. Friend Cardailhac has undertaken to look after things.
We're going to have some superb fetes. Meanwhile give us some dinner
quick, and show us our rooms. Our Parisian friends are tired out."

"Everything is ready, my son," said the old woman simply, standing
stiffly erect in her cap of Cambrai linen, with points yellowed by age,
which she never laid aside even on great occasions. Wealth had not
changed _her_. She was the typical peasant of the Rhone valley,
independent and proud, with none of the cunning humility of the rustics
described by Balzac, too simple, too, to be puffed up by wealth. Her
only pride was to show her son with what painstaking zeal she had
acquitted herself of her duties as care-taker. Not an atom of dust, not
a trace of dampness on the walls. The whole magnificent ground-floor,
the salons with the silk draperies and upholstery of changing hue,
taken at the last moment from their coverings; the long summer
galleries, with cool, resonant inlaid floors, which the Louis XV.
couches, with cane seats and backs upholstered with flowered stuffs,
furnished with summer-like coquetry; the enormous dining-hall,
decorated with flowers and branches; even the billiard-room, with its
rows of gleaming balls, its chandeliers and cue-racks,--the whole vast
extent of the chateau, seen through the long door-windows, wide open
upon the broad seignorial porch, displayed its splendor to the
admiration of the visitors, and reflected the beauty of that marvellous
land