“Yes, my dear; that will please the gentleman. It will be polite to him; and if I wasn’t so busy here, I’d go with you and ask him to give me some dinner, because I know what’s the right thing to do, you see.”
Denise was quite as well pleased that her aunt should not go with her; but she was overjoyed that she herself was allowed to go, and she ran off to engage seats for herself and Coco for the next day. The rest of that day she spent in preparing her dress. Coco jumped for joy when he learned that he was going in a stage to see his kind friend, and Mère Fourcy packed two pairs of chickens, two dozen eggs, some fruit and cake, in a basket, as a present for the young gentleman in Paris.
Denise was up before dawn. It was early in October; but it was a lovely day, and reminded the girl of that on which she first met Auguste. Her toilet was soon made; she wore a new dress and her daintiest cap—the one in which, on Sundays, she turned the heads of all the young men in the village, and drove the girls to despair. But would that pretty cap have the same power in Paris? Denise had no desire to make conquests; there was but one person whom she wished to please, although she said to herself a hundred times a day:
“No, no! I am not in love with him.”
Coco was dressed very neatly. Mère Fourcy gave them the basket, saying:
“Give him my compliments, and tell him to think of me when he eats the chickens, and to tell me how he likes that cake!”
Denise and Coco ran, for fear of missing the stage; at last they were safely inside, the basket between Denise’s legs, and they started for Paris.
It was not a long journey; but it seemed endless to Denise; whereas the child, delighted to be in the stage, wished that they might never arrive. However, they reached the stage office on Rue Saint-Martin in due course, and Denise, taking the basket on her arm, took Coco by the hand, and having inquired the way to Rue Saint-Georges, started in the direction of the Chaussée-d’Antin.
Denise’s beauty and her peasant costume attracted more than one compliment on the way; but the girl quickened her pace without replying, although the basket was very heavy and Coco began to be fatigued by walking on the pavements.
When one is unfamiliar with a place, one is likely to walk farther than is necessary. Denise many times mistook one street for another; she disliked to inquire, because they to whom she applied seemed inclined to offer her their arms. She was warm and perspiring, and Coco was cross and kept saying: