“What evening?”

“Well, let me see—­we had better wait, and consult the advertisements.”

“Dame! never mind the advertisements.  Let it be Tuesday.”

“Why Tuesday?”

“Because it is soon; and because I can get away early on Tuesdays if I ask leave.”

I had, plainly, no chance of escape.

“You would not prefer to see the great military piece at the Porte St. Martin?” I suggested.  “There are three hundred real soldiers in it, and they fire real cannon.”

“Not I!  I have been to the Porte St. Martin, over and over again.  Emile knew one of the scene-painter’s assistants, and used to get tickets two or three times a month.”

“Then it shall be the Opera Comique,” said I, with a sigh.

“And on Tuesday evening next.”

“On Tuesday evening next.”

At this moment the piping and fiddling broke out afresh, and Josephine, who had scarcely taken the little telescope from her eye all the time, exclaimed that she saw the wedding party going through the market-place of the town.

“There they are—­the musicians first; the bride and bridegroom next; and eight friends, all two and two!  There will be a dance, depend on it!  Let us go down to the town, and hear all about it!  Perhaps they might invite us to join them—­who knows?”

“But you would not dance before dinner?”

“Eh, mon Dieu!  I would dance before breakfast, if I had the chance.  Come along.  If we do not make haste, we may miss them.”

I rose, feeling, and I daresay, looking, like a martyr; and we went down again into the town.

There we inquired of the first person who seemed likely to know—­he was a dapper hairdresser, standing at his shop-door with his hands in his apron pockets and a comb behind his ear—­and were told that the wedding-party had just passed through the village, on their way to the Chateau of Saint Aulaire.

“The Chateau of St. Aulaire!” said Josephine.  “What are they going to do there?  What is there to see?”

“It is an ancient mansion, Mademoiselle, much visited by strangers,” replied the hairdresser with exceeding politeness.  “Worthy of Mademoiselle’s distinguished attention—­and Monsieur’s.  Contains old furniture, old paintings, old china—­stands in an extensive park—­one of the lions of this neighborhood, Mademoiselle—­also Monsieur.”

“To whom does it belong?” I asked, somewhat interested in this account.

“That, Monsieur, is a question difficult to answer,” replied the fluent hairdresser, running his fingers through his locks and dispersing a gentle odor of rose-oil.  “It was formerly the property of the ancient family of Saint Aulaire.  The last Marquis de Saint Aulaire, with his wife and family, were guillotined in 1793.  Some say that the young heir was saved; and an individual asserting himself to be that heir did actually put forward a claim to