As a matter of fact nobody regretted the absence of Valentine, who always moped when she came into the country.  And Mathieu expressed the general opinion in a few words of polite regret:  “Well, you must tell her how much we shall miss her.  And now let us be off.”

Celeste, however, intervened once more.  “Excuse me, monsieur, but I cannot remain with you.  No.  Madame particularly told me to go back to her at once, as she will need me to dress her.  And, besides, she is always bored when she is alone.  There is a train for Paris at a quarter past ten, is there not?  I will go back by it.  Then I will be here at eight o’clock this evening to take Mademoiselle home.  We settled all that in looking through a time-table.  Till this evening, monsieur.”

“Till this evening, then, it’s understood.”

Thereupon, leaving the maid in the deserted little station, all the others returned to the village square, where the wagon and the bicycles were waiting.

“Now we are all assembled,” exclaimed Rose, “and the real fete is about to begin.  Let me organize the procession for our triumphal return to the castle of our ancestors.”

“I am very much afraid that your procession will be soaked,” said Marianne.  “Just look at the rain approaching!”

During the last few moments there had appeared in the hitherto spotless sky a huge, livid cloud, rising from the west and urged along by a sudden squall.  It presaged a return of the violent stormy showers of the previous night.

“Rain!  Oh, we don’t care about that,” the girl responded with an air of superb defiance.  “It will never dare to come down before we get home.”

Then, with a comical semblance of authority, she disposed her people in the order which she had planned in her mind a week previously.  And the procession set off through the admiring village, amid the smiles of all the good women hastening to their doorsteps, and then spread out along the white road between the fertile fields, where bands of startled larks took wing, carrying their clear song to the heavens.  It was really magnificent.

At the head of the party were Rose and Frederic, side by side on their bicycles, opening the nuptial march with majestic amplitude.  Behind them followed the three maids of honor, the younger sisters, Louise, Madeleine, and Marguerite, the tallest first, the shortest last, and each on a wheel proportioned to her growth.  And with berets* on their heads, and their hair down their backs, waving in the breeze, they looked adorable, suggesting a flight of messenger swallows skimming over the ground and bearing good tidings onward.  As for Gregoire the page, restive and always ready to bolt, he did not behave very well; for he actually tried to pass the royal couple at the head of the procession, a proceeding which brought him various severe admonitions until he fell back, as duty demanded, to his deferential and modest post.  On the other hand, as the three maids of honor began to sing the ballad of Cinderella on her way to the palace of Prince Charming, the royal couple condescendingly declared that the song was appropriate and of pleasing effect, whatever might be the requirements of etiquette.  Indeed, Rose, Frederic, and Gregoire also ended by singing the ballad, which rang out amid the serene, far-spreading countryside like the finest music in the world.