One other visit Barbara made before leaving St. Servan, and that was to say good-bye to the bath-boy. It had needed some persuasion on her part to gain her aunt's permission for this visit.
"But, aunt, dear," Barbara said persuasively, "he helped me with Alice, and lost his place because of it. It would be so very unkind to go away without seeing how they are getting on."
"Well, I suppose you must go, but if I had known what a capacity you had for getting entangled in such plots, Barbara, really I should have been afraid to trust you alone here. It was time I came out to put matters right."
"Yes, aunt," Barbara agreed sedately, but with a twinkle in her eyes, "I really think it was," and she went to get ready for her visit to the bath-boy.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE END OF THE STORY.
When the day for parting came Barbara found that it cost her many pangs to leave them all—Mademoiselle Viré first and foremost, and the others in less degree, for she had grown fond even of Mademoiselle Thérèse. The latter lady declared she and her household were inconsolable and "unhappy enough to wear mourning," which remark Barbara took with a grain of salt, as she did most things that lady said.
But the two sisters and Marie all went to the station to say good-bye, and each of them kissed her on both cheeks, weeping the while. Barbara was not very fond of kisses from outsiders in any case, but "weeping kisses," as she called them, were certainly a trial! What finally dried Mademoiselle Thérèse's tears was to see the widower and his two sons entering the station, each carrying a bouquet of flowers.
"So pushing of them," she murmured in Barbara's ear, and turned coldly upon them; but the girl and her aunt were touched by the kindness, and the former felt horribly ashamed when she remembered that more than once in private she had laughed at the quaint little man and his ways.