Dear, dandified, vain Gaston! His great desire was to go to Paris, and when the war came he had his wish; but found sterner work to do than to dress and dance and languish at the feet of ladies. I hope it made a man of him, and fancy it did; for the French fight well and suffer bravely for the country they love in their melodramatic fashion.
As the day approached for the advent of the bridegroom, great excitement prevailed in the quiet household. Madame C. and her handmaid, dear old Marie, cackled and bustled like a pair of important hens. Madame F., the widow, lived at the milliner's, so to speak, and had several dress rehearsals for her own satisfaction. Gaston mounted guard over his sister, lest some enamoured man should rend her from them ere her Jules could secure the prize. And Pelagie placidly ate and slept, kept her hair in crimping-pins from morning till night, wore out her old clothes, and whiled away the time munching bonbons and displaying her shawl.
'Mercy on us! I should feel like a lamb being fattened for the sacrifice if I were in her place,' cried one of the freeborn American citizenesses, with an air of unmitigated scorn for French ways of conducting this interesting ceremony.
'I should feel like a galley-slave,' said the other. 'For she can't go anywhere without Gaston or Mamma at her elbow. Only yesterday she went into a shop alone, while Gaston waited at the door. And when she told it at home as a great exploit all the ladies shrieked with horror at the idea, and Mamma said, wringing her hands: "Mon Dieu! but they will think thou art a married woman, for it is inconceivable that any girl should do so bold a thing." And Pelagie wept, and implored them not to tell Jules, lest he should discard her.'
Here the Americans all groaned over the pathetic absurdity of the whole affair, and wondered with unrighteous glee what the decorous ladies below would say to some of their pranks at home. But, fearing that M. le Président might feel it his duty to eject them from the town as dangerous persons, they shrouded their past sins in the most discreet silence, and assumed their primmest demeanour in public.
'He has come! Look quick, girls!' cried Lavinia, as a carriage stopped at the door, and a rushing sound, as of many agitated skirts, was heard in the hall. Three heads peeped from the window of the blue parlour, and three pairs of curious eyes were rewarded by a sight of the bridegroom, as he alighted.
Such a little man! Such a fierce moustache! Such a dignified strut! And such an imposing uniform as he wore! For Jules Gustave Adolphe Marie Clomadoc was a colonel in some regiment stationed at Boulogne. Out he skipped; in he marched; and, peeping over the banisters, they saw him salute Madame F. with a stately kiss on the hand, then escort her up to her salon, bowing loftily, and twisting his tawny moustache with an air that gave him the effect of being six feet in height, and broad in proportion.
How he greeted his fiancée they knew not, but the murmur of voices came from the room in steady flow for hours, and Gaston flew in and out with an air of immense importance.
At dinner the strangers were proudly presented to M. le Colonel, and received affable bows from the little man, who flattered himself that he could talk English, and insisted on speaking an unknown tongue, evidently wondering at their stupidity in not understanding their own language.