"And the young man has not been to your shop again?"
"Oh, no! not since that time."
"In all this, you have not told me why the fine ladies who come to the baths prefer not to bring their servants with them?"
"Ah! what a memory you have!—Well, I have noticed very often that there is a young gentleman below who knows one of the ladies; when she leaves the bath, the young man is there, waiting for her; they talk together, they go away together; so, you see, when a lady knows that she will have a cavalier to escort her home, she does not need to bring a servant."
"If you knew, Ambroisine, how I love to listen to you—you tell me things that are so entirely new to me! Oh! please tell me some more of your adventures!"
But when Ambroisine was about to gratify her friend, perhaps they would hear Dame Ragonde's slow, regular steps approaching. Thereupon, the subject of conversation would instantly be changed, and they would talk exclusively of serious or religious matters until Bathilde's mother said:
"You have talked enough; bid your friend adieu, it is time to separate."
Thereupon Ambroisine would leave her young friend; but all that she had heard furnished Bathilde with food for thought for many days.
V
AN OLD MANSION.—AN OLD NOBLE
Alone in a large and handsome room, richly furnished, the hangings of which, however, were very old and seemed to denote, on the part of the proprietors, a profound respect for whatever had belonged to their ancestors, an old man sat in an enormous easy-chair, whose carved and gilded frame seemed as ancient as the hangings, before a desk on which lay several boxes, books, and papers, which he was apparently engaged in examining with care.