little pad, as one might call it, above her shoes. Two ear-drops,
worth about three-thousand francs each, adorned her ears. She wore a
lace cap with pink ribbons, a mousseline-de-laine gown in pink and
gray stripes with an edging of green, opened at the bottom to show a
petticoat trimmed with valencienne lace; and a green cashmere shawl
with palm-leaves, the point of which reached the ground as she walked.

"You are not so hungry," she said, casting her eyes on Beauvisage,
"that you can't wait half an hour? My father has finished dinner and I
couldn't eat mine in peace without knowing what he thinks and whether
we ought to go to Gondreville."

"Go, go, my dear. I'll wait," said Phileas, using the "thee" and
"thou."

"Good heavens!" cried Severine with a significant gesture of her
shoulders. "Shall I never break you of that habit of tutoying me?"

"I never do it before company--not since 1817," said Phileas.

"You do it constantly before the servants and your daughter."

"As you will, Severine," replied Beauvisage sadly.

"Above all, don't say a word to Cecile about this resolution of the
electors," added Madame Beauvisage, who was looking in the glass to
arrange her shawl.

"Shall I go with you to your father's?" asked Phileas.