"Ah, good Heavens! here they are!" cried Rose, quite scared; "quick, quick, or the reception will be missed."
A scramble ensued, the owner of the crawfish was paid, and there was just time to shut the basket and carry it to the wagon. The whole family was already running off, invading the little station, and ranging itself in good order along the arrival platform.
"No, no, not like that," Rose repeated. "You don't observe the right order of precedence. The queen mother must be with the king her husband, and then the princes according to their height. Frédéric must place himself on my right. And it's for me, you know, to make the speech of welcome."
The train stopped. When Ambroise and Andrée alighted they were at first much surprised to find that everybody had come to meet them, drawn up in a row with solemn mien. When Rose, however began to deliver a pompous little speech, treating her brother's betrothed like some foreign princess, whom she had orders to welcome in the name of the king, her father, the young couple began to laugh, and even prolonged the joke by responding in the same style. The railway men looked on and listened, gaping. It was a fine farce, and the Froments were delighted at showing themselves so playful on that warm May morning.
But Marianne suddenly raised an exclamation of surprise: "What! has not Madame Séguin come with you? She gave me so many promises that she would."
In the rear of Ambroise and Andrée Céleste the maid had alone alighted from the train. And she undertook to explain things: "Madame charged me," said she, "to say that she was really most grieved. Yesterday she still hoped that she would be able to keep her promise. Only in the evening she received a visit from Monsieur de Navarède, who is presiding to-day, Sunday, at a meeting of his Society, and of course Madame could not do otherwise than attend it. So she requested me to accompany the young people, and everything is satisfactory, for here they are, you see."
As a matter of fact nobody regretted the absence of Valentine, who always moped when she came into the country. And Mathieu expressed the general opinion in a few words of polite regret: "Well, you must tell her how much we shall miss her. And now let us be off."
Céleste, however, intervened once more. "Excuse me, monsieur, but I cannot remain with you. No. Madame particularly told me to go back to her at once, as she will need me to dress her. And, besides, she is always bored when she is alone. There is a train for Paris at a quarter past ten, is there not? I will go back by it. Then I will be here at eight o'clock this evening to take Mademoiselle home. We settled all that in looking through a time-table. Till this evening, monsieur."
"Till this evening, then, it's understood."
Thereupon, leaving the maid in the deserted little station, all the others returned to the village square, where the wagon and the bicycles were waiting.