"Are my trunks all out?" she said to him, in a tone of voice that assured the mail-man that, without being bold or immodest, she was quite well able to take care of herself.
The conductor pointed to the brakemen, who were tumbling out some luggage to the platform.
"I hope that they will be careful of my wheel," said the girl.
"It's all right," replied the conductor, and he raised his arm as a signal for the train to move on. "If anything goes wrong with it, send it to this station, and I will take it to Yarmouth and have it mended for you."
"Thank you," said the girl, graciously; then she turned to Emmanuel, and looked steadfastly at his red jacket.
He, meanwhile, politely tried to avert his eyes from her, but he could not do so. She was fresh from the home of the Englishman in Paris, and he could not conceal his tremulous eager interest in her. She was not beautiful, like flaxen-haired Rose à Charlitte, nor dark and statuesque, like the stately Claudine; but she was distinguée, yes, très-distinguée, and her manner was just what he had imagined that of a true Parisienne would be like. She was small and dainty, and possessed a back as straight as a soldier's, and a magnificent bust. Her round face was slightly freckled, her nose was a little upturned, but the hazy, fine mass of hair that surrounded her head was most beauteous,—it was like the sun shining through the reddish meadow grass.
He was her servant, her devoted slave, and Emmanuel, who had never dreamed that he possessed patrician instincts, bowed low before her, "Mademoiselle, I am at your service."
"Merci, monsieur" (thank you, sir), she said, with conventional politeness; then in rapid and exquisite French, that charmed him almost to tears, she asked, mischievously, "But I have never been here before, how do you know me?"
He bowed again. "The name of Mademoiselle Bidiane LeNoir is often on our lips. Mademoiselle, I salute your return."
