Bess stepped forward with the greatest alacrity, and Roger handed her in with much ceremony, she holding her head very high, and the warm color mantling her cheeks. And then she sat back and fanned herself with her hand,—a fan was not yet among Bess’s possessions. And having tasted this part of the pleasure, she rose and descended with all the majesty in the world, Roger still ceremoniously assisting, with Monsieur Mazet and Madame Michot admiring and ejaculating, and all the inn servants grinning behind them.
But it was now time to start, if they would make Paris before dark, for the roads were heavy, and the coach made but slow progress at best. Bess therefore kissed Madame Michot, saying to her solemnly,—
“I swear to you I will so act in Paris that you will never be ashamed to say you know me. And I thank you a thousand, thousand times for your goodness to me.”
“’Tis nothing,” graciously replied Madame Michot. “You earned all I did for you and more.”
Then Jacques shuffled forward and said,—
“I go to Paris twice in the week in the cart, and any time you like to come out, why, there’s plenty of room in the cart.”
“I know it—and I’ll come,” cried Bess, shaking Jacques’s hand vigorously.
Madame Michot watched narrowly for any lover-like symptoms on the part of either Roger or Bess at parting. But they parted with the openness and warmth of friendship only, Bess saying,—
“And give my duty and love to Mr. Dicky, and put it in the right words; for though I know exactly how to treat him when I talk with him, yet I don’t know how to send a message to a popish priest that is to be.”
“I will—I will,” cried Roger, and helped her in the coach for the second time. Papa Mazet mounted his tall charger, and they set forth, Bess putting her head out of the window to instruct the post-boys to be sure and drive through the principal streets as they left the town.