"Yes, he said so."
"That is an unexpected pleasure,—that is really delightful!" exclaimed Maurice, enthusiastically.
Bertha did not reply; but she certainly looked inclined to pout, and as though she had no very distinct perception of the delight in question.
In a few days Maurice and Ronald were on the great ocean.
A fortnight later the Marquis and Marchioness de Fleury, and the secretary of the former, M. de Bois, were also on their way to the New World.
Bertha worried her uncle by her sad face, listless manner, and low spirits, to say nothing of her loss of appetite (to his thinking the most important feature of her malaise), until he was convinced that she had lost all interest in Paris, and that her sadness would be increased by a longer sojourn in the gay capital. When she admitted this, he kindly inquired if she desired to travel.
"Yes, very much," was her reply.
Whither would she go? To Italy? To England? To Russia?
"No,—to America!"