l up and down, a regular squirrel-wheel."

"Well, let us start at once. As we have nothing to fear near Alencon,
you can go before me; we'll join you soon."

"One would think she had seen ten years' service," thought Merle, as he
departed. "Hulot is mistaken; that young girl is not earning her
living out of a feather-bed. Ten thousand carriages! if I want to be
adjutant-major I mustn't be such a fool as to mistake Saint-Michael for
the devil."

During Mademoiselle de Verneuil's conference with the captain, Francine
had slipped out for the purpose of examining, through a window of the
corridor, the spot in the courtyard which had excited her curiosity on
arriving at the inn. She watched the stable and the heaps of straw with
the absorption of one who was saying her prayers to the Virgin, and
she presently saw Madame du Gua approaching Marche-a-Terre with the
precaution of a cat that dislikes to wet its feet. When the Chouan
caught sight of the lady, he rose and stood before her in an attitude of
deep respect. This singular circumstance aroused Francine's curiosity;
she slipped into the courtyard and along the walls, avoiding Madame du
Gua's notice, and trying to hide herself behind the stable door. She
walked on tiptoe, scarcely daring to breathe, and succeeded in posting
herself close to Marche-a-Terre, without exciting his attention.

"If, after all this information," the lady was saying to the Chouan, "it
proves not to be her real name, you are to fire upon her without pity,
as you would on a mad dog."

"Agreed!" said Marche-a-Terre.

The lady left him. The Chouan replaced his red woollen cap upon his
head, remained standing, and was scratching his ear as if puzzled when
Francine suddenly appeared before him, apparently by magic.

"Saint Anne of Auray!" he exclaimed. Then he dropped his whip, clasped
his hands, and stood as if in ecstasy. A faint color illuminated his
coarse face, and his eyes shone like diamonds dropped on a muck-heap.
"Is it really the brave girl from Cottin?" he muttered, in a voice so
smothered that he alone heard it. "You _are_ fine," he said, after a
pause, using the curious word, "godaine," a superlative in the dialect
of those regions used by lovers to express the combination of fine
clothes and beauty.

"I daren't touch you," added Marche-a-Terre, putting out his big hand
nevertheless, as if to weigh the gold chain which hung round her neck
and below her waist.

"You had better not