"De Belleville! really I am mad over that name. Au revoir, my goddess!"
Chamoureau kissed once more the hand that was offered him; then took his leave, as light as a feather, saying to himself:
"She loves me, she adores me, for she wants to be married at once! Oh! I'll not let the grass grow under my feet.—The devil! is it only three months since Eléonore died? I certainly am an idiot! it's an endless time since I became a widower!"
While her newly-rich adorer went away in raptures, Thélénie, alone once more, said to herself:
"A new name—an apartment in a distant quarter—a new position in society! Madame Sainte-Suzanne will be lost to sight, and she will hear no more of the Croques and the Beauregards. But she will be careful not to lose sight of those upon whom she is determined to be revenged!"
XXIV
VISITORS
Honorine and Agathe were installed in the little house at Chelles, and Poucette was with her new mistresses. The first days were devoted to arranging the furniture, deciding where to put the various things, making the necessary changes, and attending to the innumerable petty details which follow every change of abode, and which are of much more importance when one takes possession of a house one has purchased. During those early days the two friends hardly had time to walk in their garden or to glance at the landscape.
While they were occupied thus, assisted by Poucette, who did her best to give satisfaction and had already won the regard of her mistresses; while they arranged, placed and displaced furniture, and set the music and the books in order, the spring progressed. It was the middle of May, the time when the country is so lovely, when it is embellished every day by some new flower or leaf; and when at last Honorine and Agathe were able to sit at their windows and to go down to inspect their garden and stroll along the paths, they exclaimed with surprise and delight at the change which a few weeks had wrought in the face of nature.
Agathe would pause in admiration before a linden or an ash tree, crying:
"Ah! my dear! how lovely the trees are! I never saw this one before!"