“Mam’selle Alide!” exclaimed, or rather groaned, François.
“The poor dumb beast!—” muttered Euclid.
The knives and the forks fell from the hands of Myndert and his guest, as it were by a simultaneous paralysis. The latter involuntarily arose; while the former planted his solid person still more firmly in its seat, like one who was preparing to meet some severe and expected shock, with all the physical resolution he could muster.
“—What of my niece!—What of my geldings?—You have called upon Dinah?”
“Sans doute, Monsieur!”
“—And you kept the keys of the stable?”
“I nebber let him go, at all!”
“—And you bade her call her mistress?”
“She no make answair, de tout.”
“—The animals were fed and watered, as I ordered?”