pull his coat into place, for it had rucked up as much at the back as
in front, pushed out of shape by the working of a piriform stomach.
Being admitted as soon as the servant in livery saw him, the important
and imposing personage followed the man, who opened the door of the
drawing-room, announcing:

"Monsieur Crevel."

On hearing the name, singularly appropriate to the figure of the man
who bore it, a tall, fair woman, evidently young-looking for her age,
rose as if she had received an electric shock.

"Hortense, my darling, go into the garden with your Cousin Betty," she
said hastily to her daughter, who was working at some embroidery at
her mother's side.

After curtseying prettily to the captain, Mademoiselle Hortense went
out by a glass door, taking with her a withered-looking spinster, who
looked older than the Baroness, though she was five years younger.

"They are settling your marriage," said Cousin Betty in the girl's
ear, without seeming at all offended at the way in which the Baroness
had dismissed them, counting her almost as zero.

The cousin's dress might, at need, have explained this free-and-easy
demeanor. The old maid wore a merino gown of a dark plum color, of
which the cut and trimming dated from the year of the Restoration; a
little worked collar, worth perhaps three francs; and a common straw
hat with blue satin ribbons edged with straw plait, such as the
old-clothes buyers wear at market. On looking down at her kid shoes,