With these remarks, the ladies ordered their own equipage, an infant omnibus, much in vogue in Dinan, where retired army officers, English or Scotch, drive about with their little families of eighteen or twenty. One Colonel Newcome, a grave-looking man, used to come to church in a bus of this sort, with nine daughters and four sons, like a patriarch. The strangers thought it was a boarding-school, till he presented the entire flock, with paternal pride, as 'my treasures.'
Madame C., in a large Leghorn bonnet, trembling with yellow bows, led the way with an air of lofty indifference as to what became of her house that day. Marie bore a big basket, full of cold fowls, salad, and wines; she also was in a new spring hat of purple, which made her rosy old face look like a china aster. Lavinia reposed upon the other seat; and the infants insisted on sharing the driver's seat, up aloft, that they might enjoy the prospect, which freak caused Flabeau's boy to beam and blush till his youthful countenance was a deep scarlet.
They had a pleasant day; for good old Madame soon recovered her temper, and beguiled the time with lively tales of her mother's trials during the Revolution.
Marie concocted spiced drinks, salad that was a thing to dream of, not to tell, and produced such edible treasures that her big basket seemed bottomless.
The frisky damsels explored ruins, ran races on the hard beach, sniffed the salt breezes, and astonished the natives by swarming up and down 'precipices,' as they called the rocks.
That was a fatal day for Flabeau's boy (they never knew his name); for, as if the wedding had flown to his head, he lost his youthful heart to one of the lively damsels who invaded his perch. Such tender glances as his China-blue eyes cast upon her; such grins of joy as he gave when she spoke to him; such feats of agility as he performed, leaping down to gather flowers, or hurling himself over thorny hedges, to point out a dolmen or a menhir (they never could remember which was which). Alas, alas! for Flabeau's boy! Deeply was he wounded that day by the unconscious charmer, who would as soon have thought of inspiring love in the bosom of the broken-nosed saint by the wayside as in the heart that beat under the blue blouse.
I regret to say that 'the infants,' as Madame C. always called Miss Livy's charges, behaved themselves with less decorum than could have been wished. But the proud consciousness that they never could be disposed of as Pelagie had been had such an exhilarating effect upon them that they frisked like the lambs in the field.
One drove the bus in a retired spot and astonished the stout horses by the way in which she bowled them along the fine, hard road. The other sang college songs, to the intense delight of the old ladies, who admired the 'chants Amériques so gay,' and to the horror of their duenna, who knew what they meant. A shower came up, and they would remain outside; so the boy put up a leathern hood, and they sat inside in such a merry mood that the silent youth suddenly caught the infection, and burst forth into a Breton melody, which he continued to drone till they got home.
The house was a blaze of light when they arrived, and Françoise, the maid, came flying out to report sundry breakages and mishaps. How the salad had precipitated itself downstairs, dish and all. How Monsieur Gaston was so gay, so inconceivably gay, that he could hardly stand, and insisted on kissing her clandestinely. That Mademoiselle Pelagie had wept much because her veil was torn; and Madame F. had made a fresh toilette, ravishing to behold. Would the dear ladies survey the party, still at table? Regard them from the little window in the garden, and see if it is not truly a spectacle the most superb!
They did regard them, and saw the bride at the head of the table, eating steadily through the dessert; the bridegroom reciting poems with tremendous effect; Gaston almost invisible behind a barricade of bottles; and Madame F., in violet velvet, diamonds, plumes, and lace, more sleek and buxom than ever. The ladies all talked at once, and the gentlemen drank healths every five minutes. A very French and festive scene it was; for the room was small, and twenty mortals were stowed therein. One fat lady sat in the fireplace, Papa Clomadoc leaned his heavy head upon the sideboard, and the plump shoulders of Madame F. were half out of the front window. 'But it was genteel. Oh! I assure you, yes,' as Françoise said.