when on returning to the house late one evening he found the piazza
piled high from one end to the other with her boxes. Jeanne stood by
with a defiant air, superintending the cording of the last one. She
anticipated some remonstrance or inquiry from Willan, and was half
disappointed when he passed by, giving no sign of having observed the
boxes at all, and simply lifting his hat to her with his usual
formality. The next morning, instead of the public vehicle which Jeanne
had engaged to call for her, her own coach and the gray horses she had
best liked were driven to the door. This unexpected tribute from Willan
almost disarmed her for the moment. It was her coach almost more than
her house which she had grieved to lose.

"Well, really, Mr. Willan," she exclaimed, "I never once thought of
taking that, though there's no doubt about its being my own, and your
father'd tell you so if he was here; and the horses too. He always said
the grays were mine from the day he bought them. But I'm much obliged to
you, I'm sure."

"You have no occasion to thank me, Madame," replied Willan, standing on
the threshold of the house, pale with excitement at the prospect of
immediate freedom from the presence of the coarse creature. "The coach
is your own, and the horses; and if they had not been, I should not have
permitted them to remain here."

"Oh ho!" sneered Jeanne, all her antagonism kindled afresh at this last
gratuitous fling. "You needn't think you can get rid of everything
that'll remind you of me, young man. You'll see me oftener than you
like, at the Golden Pear. You'll have to stop there, as your father did
before you." And Jeanne's black eyes snapped viciously as she drove off,
her piles of boxes following slowly in two wagon-loads behind.