A hundred yards behind us, his bright-brown body sharply outlined against the pale, amber-colored sky, stood a little Bedouin smiling down upon us. It was a perfect personification of Eastern life, and I made a sketch, while the Lieutenant told Mary of his hard campaign southward, and his joy at catching the first glimpse of Teschoun from the distance.
When we returned home we found that the Commandant's servant had left a bunch of roses for Mary, with his master's compliments; that the Capitaine's servant had been sent round with his master's horse for her to try, and that the Général had sent word by his aide-de-camp that he would himself have the pleasure of calling upon us that evening.
Mary and I felt utterly overwhelmed by such goodness and condescension. A real starred, laced Général was about to call on us! We could hardly believe that we were our identical, insignificant selves, who, but for you, oh! most sweet and honored Patroness, would have sunk under the burden of toil imposed upon us. But how all was changed! The poor, unknown artist was treated as if he had been Sir Peter Paul Rubens; the humble little school teacher was fêted and flattered like the wife of a conquering commander-in-chief.
We had invited the young Lieutenant to drink tea with us at eight o'clock, and were enjoying a little music after a very sociable fashion, when a noisy excitement seemed to shake the house like a shock of an earthquake, and M. le Général was announced in Dominique's most impressive manner.
M. le Général was by no means an awful-looking person; and, indeed, we had so expended our surprise already, that we had no more at command.
He was an excessively stout, merry person, middle-aged, of a beautiful complexion, and a capacity to wink that would have vulgarized any one else but a general. He made himself very pleasant, accepted a cup of tea, praised Mary's French, said that he intended to dine with us at the Commandant's to-morrow, and told us some laughable stories about the Arabs. I noticed that the Lieutenant seemed quite overawed by the presence of the Général, and sat flute in hand, like a statue. Mary tried to put him at his ease, but to no purpose. It did not mend matters when the Général began first to twit him about his musical accomplishments, and then to catechise him on military matters.
"You were in that affair of '59, in Kabylia, weren't you?" he asked, in that quick, positive, military tone to which we with difficulty get accustomed.
My Little Sister Mary