On stepping from the carriage Madame de la Grenouillère honored her servitors with a benevolent glance, embraced Mother Michel with touching familiarity, and demanded news of Moumouth.
The Countess embraces Mother Michel.
"Your protégé is wonderfully well," said Mother Michel, "he grows fatter and handsomer under our very eyes; but it may be said, without injury to the truth, that his moral qualities are even beyond his physical charms."
"Poor friend, if he does not love me he will be a monster of ingratitude, for since our separation I have thought of him constantly; Heaven has taken away many beings that were dear to me, but Moumouth will be the consolation of my old age!"
As soon as the Countess had given the orders which her arrival made necessary, she prayed Mother Michel to fetch Moumouth.
"He will be charmed to see you again, madame," Mother Michel answered; "he is in the garden in the care of Faribole, a little young man whom your steward judged proper to admit to the house; the young rogue and the cat have become a pair of intimate friends."
Faribole seated in the Garden.
Mother Michel went down to the garden and there found Faribole alone, seated upon a bench, and with a preoccupied air stripping the leaves from a branch of boxwood which he held in his hand.