Was not Bettina all sprightly and joyous when, on the 14th of June, they took the train for Longueval?  As soon as she was alone in a coupe with her sister: 

“Ah!” she cried, “how happy I am!  Let us breathe a little, quite alone, you and me, for a few days.  The Nortons and Turners do not come till the 25th, do they?”

“No, not till the 25th.”

“We will pass our lives riding or driving in the woods, in the fields.  Ten days of liberty!  And during those ten days no more lovers, no more lovers!  And all those lovers, with what are they in love, with me or my money?  That is the mystery, the unfathomable mystery.”

The engine whistled; the train put itself slowly into motion.  A wild idea entered Bettina’s head.  She leaned out of the window and cried, accompanying her words with a little wave of the hand: 

“Good-by, my lovers, good-by.”

Then she threw herself suddenly into a corner of the coupe with a hearty burst of laughter.

“Oh, Susie, Susie!”

“What is the matter?”

“A man with a red flag in his hand; he saw me, and he looked so astonished.”

“You are so irrational!”

“Yes, it is true, to have called out of the window like that, but not to be happy at thinking that we are going to live alone, ’en garcons’.”

“Alone! alone!  Not exactly that.  To begin with, we shall have two people to dinner to-night.”

“Ah! that is true.  But those two people, I shall not be at all sorry to see them again.  Yes, I shall be well pleased to see the old Cure again, but especially the young officer.”

“What! especially?”

“Certainly; because what the lawyer from Souvigny told us the other day is so touching, and what that great artilleryman did when he was quite little was so good, so good, that this evening I shall seek for an opportunity of telling him what I think of it, and I shall find one.”

Then Bettina, abruptly changing the course of the conversation, continued: 

“Did they send the telegram yesterday to Edwards about the ponies?”

“Yes, yesterday before dinner.”

“Oh, you will let me drive them up to the house.  It will be such fun to go through the town, and to drive up at full speed into the court in front of the entrance.  Tell me, will you?”

“Yes, certainly, you shall drive the ponies.”

“Oh, how nice of you, Susie!”

Edwards was the stud-groom.  He had arrived at Longueval three days before.  He deigned to come himself—­to meet Mrs. Scott and Miss Percival.  He brought the phaeton drawn by the four black ponies.  He was waiting at the station.  The passage of the ponies through the principal street of the town had made a sensation.  The population rushed out of their houses, and asked eagerly: 

“What is it?  What can it be?”

Some ventured the opinion: 

“It is, perhaps, a travelling circus.”