kindly; although, for some time, she had kept him standing in the
carriage gateway outside her door. But, on his complaining of the
draught and his rheumatism, she had asked him in: first looking round
with some anxiety, to see who was in the room behind her. No one was
there when he entered and sat down. But, in a minute or two, a tall,
thin young lady, with great, sad eyes, and pale cheeks, came from the
inner room, and, seeing him, retired. 'It is Mademoiselle Cannes,' said
Madame Babette, rather unnecessarily; for, if he had not been on the
watch for some sign of Mademoiselle de Crequy, he would hardly have
noticed the entrance and withdrawal.

"Clement and the good old gardener were always rather perplexed by Madame
Babette's evident avoidance of all mention of the De Crequy family. If
she were so much interested in one member as to be willing to undergo the
pains and penalties of a domiciliary visit, it was strange that she never
inquired after the existence of her charge's friends and relations from
one who might very probably have heard something of them. They settled
that Madame Babette must believe that the Marquise and Clement were dead;
and admired her for her reticence in never speaking of Virginie. The
truth was, I suspect, that she was so desirous of her nephews success by
this time, that she did not like letting any one into the secret of
Virginie's whereabouts who might interfere with their plan. However, it
was arranged between Clement and his humble friend, that the former,
dressed in the peasant's clothes in which he had entered Paris, but
smartened up in one or two particulars, as if, although a countryman, he
had money to spare, should go and engage a sleeping-room in the old
Breton Inn; where, as I told you, accommodation for the night was to be
had. This was accordingly done, without exciting Madame Babette's
suspicions, for she was unacquainted with the Normandy accent, and
consequently did not perceive the exaggeration of it which Monsieur de
Crequy adopted in order to disguise his pure Parisian. But after he had
for two nights slept in a queer dark closet, at the end of one of the
numerous short galleries in the Hotel Duguesclin, and paid his money for
such accommodation each morning at the little bureau under the window of
the conciergerie, he found himself no nearer to his object. He stood
outside in the gateway: Madame Babette opened a pane in her window,
counted out the change, g