ng apart, every one was anxious
to know the hour of our departure. Now, when you are going to crawl into
your canoe from a bad launch, a crowd, however friendly, is undesirable;
and so we told them not before twelve, and mentally determined to be off
by ten at latest.

Towards evening we went abroad again to post some letters. It was cool
and pleasant; the long village was quite empty, except for one or two
urchins who followed us as they might have followed a menagerie; the
hills and the tree-tops looked in from all sides through the clear air;
and the bells were chiming for yet another service.

Suddenly we sighted the three girls standing, with a fourth sister, in
front of a shop on the wide selvage of the roadway. We had been very
merry with them a little while ago, to be sure. But what was the
etiquette of Origny? Had it been a country road, of course we should
have spoken to them; but here, under the eyes of all the gossips, ought
we to do even as much as bow? I consulted the _Cigarette_.

"Look," said he.

I looked. There were the four girls on the same spot; but now four backs
were turned to us, very upright and conscious. Corporal Modesty had
given the word of command, and the well-disciplined picket had gone
right-about-face like a single person. They maintained this formation
all the while we were in sight; but we heard them tittering among
themselves, and the girl whom we had not met laughed with open mouth,
and even looked over her shoulder at the enemy. I wonder was it
altogether modesty after all? or in part a sort of country provocation?

As we were returning to the inn, we beheld something floating in the
ample field of golden evening sky, above the chalk cliffs and the trees
that grow along their summit. It was too high up, too large, and too
steady for a kite; and as it was dark, it could not be a star. For
although a star were as black as ink and as rugged as a walnut, so amply
does the sun bathe heaven with radiance, that it would sparkle like a
point of light for us. The village was dotted with people with their
heads in air; and the children were in a bustle all along the street and
far up the straight road that climbs the hill, where we could still see
them running in loose knots. It was a balloon, we learned, which had
left St. Quentin at half-past five that evening. Mighty composedly the
majority of the grown people took it. But we were English, and were soon
running up the hill with the b