Chapter 6

FINAL DISAPPOINTMENT AND ITS FIRST RESULT



The next day, Mademoiselle Cormon, packed into the old carriole with Josette, and looking like a pyramid on a vast sea of parcels, drove up the rue Saint-Blaise on her way to Prebaudet, where she was overtaken by an event which hurried on her marriage,--an event entirely unlooked for by either Madame Granson, du Bousquier, Monsieur de Valois, or Mademoiselle Cormon himself. Chance is the greatest of all artificers.

The day after her arrival at Prebaudet, she was innocently employed, about eight o'clock in the morning, in listening, as she breakfasted, to the various reports of her keeper and her gardener, when Jacquelin made a violent irruption into the dining-room.

"Mademoiselle," he cried, out of breath, "Monsieur l'abbe sends you an express, the son of Mere Grosmort, with a letter. The lad left Alencon before daylight, and he has just arrived; he ran like Penelope! Can't I give him a glass of wine?"

"What can have happened, Josette? Do you think my uncle can be--"

"He couldn't write if he were," said Josette, guessing her mistress's fears.

"Quick! quick!" cried Mademoiselle Cormon, as soon as she had read the first lines. "Tell Jacquelin to harness Penelope-- Get ready, Josette; pack up everything in half an hour. We must go back to town--"

"Jacquelin!" called Josette, excited by the sentiment she saw on her mistress's face.

Jacquelin, informed by Josette, came in to say,--

"But, mademoiselle, Penelope is eating her oats."

"What does that signify? I must start at once."

"But, mademoiselle, it is going to rain."

"Then we shall get wet."

"The house is on fire!" muttered Josette, piqued at the silence her mistress kept as to the contents of the letter, which she read and reread.

"Finish your coffee, at any rate, mademoiselle; don't excite your blood; just see how red you are."

"Am I red, Josette?" she said, going to a mirror, from which the quicksilver was peeling, and which presented her features to her upside down.

"Good heavens!" thought Mademoiselle Cormon, "suppose I should look ugly! Come, Josette; come, my dear, dress me at once; I want to be ready before Jacquelin has harnessed Penelope. If you can't pack my things in time, I will leave them here rather than lose a single minute."

If you have thoroughly comprehended the positive monomania to which the desire of marriage had brought Mademoiselle Cormon, you will share her emotion. The worthy uncle announced in this sudden missive that Monsieur de Troisville, of the Russian army during the Emigration, grandson of one of his best friends, was desirous of retiring to Alencon, and asked