Will it not be admitted that a letter such as this was calculated to cause a flutter of agitation in the meekest feminine bosom? To be recalled from School before the completion of the tiresome process technically known as "finishing," that was matter for rejoicing. The little bedroom-boudoir in the Colonel's quarters at the Cavalry Barracks, "elegantly furnished, suitable for a young lady of refinement," presented an alluring picture, the tiny kitchen, "full of pots and bright pans," charmed....
For Mademoiselle de Bayard, going back to her Colonel after two years' absence, laden as the working-bee with the honey of accomplishments and the well-kneaded wax of useful knowledge, promised herself that it should not be long before her idol should be convinced by practical demonstration that his Juliette had not forgotten how to cook. Irish stew, saddle-of-mutton with onion-sauce, pancakes, Scotch collops, English plum-pudding and mince-pies had been added to her lengthy list of recipes, by grace of the Convent cook, Sister Boniface, who had permitted the ardent amateur to experiment in a second kitchen, used in hot weather, abutting on the garden, and not regarded as a portion of the nuns' enclosure.
To return, and resume the old dear life of companionship, how sweetly welcome had been the summons. But nothing could disguise the taste of the powder that came after the jam.
You are to conceive the struggle in Juliette's faithful heart between obedience and anger. Marry, my faith! yes! Every sensible young girl naturally expected to be married; but a husband approved of by oneself, if selected by one's father—that was what one had had reason to expect.
And this Charles, eulogized as wise, sensible, far-seeing, and business-like. Were these qualities, though naturally desirable in the estimation of a father-in-law, attributes that weighed down the scale in the opinion of a bride? Had one ever beheld him? She shut her eyes and summoned up all the masculine faces in her gallery of mental portraits, dismissing one after the other with no's, and no's, and no's! ... Was it not horrible to have to admit even to oneself that one had not the faintest recollection of ever having seen or spoken to him? Madame Tessier she remembered well as a little, stout, very gentille and amiable, elderly lady, whom she had visited with M. le Colonel, who had embraced one cordially, and insisted on one's partaking—immediately and at great length—of a collation of sandwiches, fruit, cakes, and syrups; excellent—and to a hungry school-girl, welcome at any hour of the day. What more? ... Ah, yes! Madame had much deplored Charles's absence, possibly at Lyons or in Belgium. Further, Madame had remarked to M. le Colonel:
"My friend, your Juliette is the image of her beloved grandmother!"
"Will nobody ever say that I am like my mother?" Juliette had gaily cried. And with a strange stiff smile, the Colonel had answered for Madame Tessier,—who at that juncture had opportunely upset a dish of little sugar-cakes.
"There have been moments, my child, when I have"—he coughed rather awkwardly for M. le Colonel—"anticipated that a resemblance might exist."
Could he have been on the verge of saying "feared," and substituted the other word at the last moment? Such an idea was ridiculous, yet it had occurred to Juliette.
To questions on the subject of the faintly remembered mother the grandmother had been impervious. The Colonel had always answered—yet with palpable reticence....