“They want to make the most of their guests, I should say,” she remarked dryly, after viewing herself in seven different glasses.
“This might be called ‘the chamber of reflection,’” she continued, arranging her crimps.
“You’re too bright to live,” cried Molly. “But put on your hat again, Miss Vanity. Don’t you know we’re going to drive around the city?”
“Who are going?”
“Only The Happy Six; that’s all.”
Their driver was an old man, intelligent and fond of scenery. He took them first through some of the oldest streets of Rouen, hardly six feet wide, where two teams could not possibly pass each other. Perhaps it may have been to warn away other drivers that he cracked his whip so sharply,—“as if he were killing an elephant,” Kirke whispered to Paul.
Then they went to see the round tower in which Joan of Arc spent so many tedious months, in a cell only large enough to admit a narrow window, yet with walls twelve feet thick.
Thence they drove to the spot where she was burned as a witch; and Molly stepped from the carriage to read the inscription carved upon the stone in the pavement.
“Oh, how wickedly they did treat that innocent creature!” said she, with flashing eyes. “You know she didn’t want to go into battle; but she ‘went forth to save France.’”
“And to crown Charles Seventh,” added Pauline. “I detest him—the ungrateful thing!”