through Prades early in the morning, and a conveyance was sent from
Vernet to bring Adolphe to the baths. Never was prince or princess
expected with more anxiety. Madame Bauche was up and dressed long
before the hour, and was heard to say five several times that she was
sure he would not come. The capitaine was out and on the high road,
moving about with his wooden leg, as perpendicular as a lamp-post and
almost as black. Marie also was up, but nobody had seen her. She
was up and had been out about the place before any of them were
stirring; but now that the world was on the move she lay hidden like
a hare in its form.

And then the old char-a-banc clattered up to the door, and Adolphe
jumped out of it into his mother's arms. He was fatter and fairer
than she had last seen him, had a larger beard, was more fashionably
clothed, and certainly looked more like a man. Marie also saw him
out of her little window, and she thought that he looked like a god.
Was it probable, she said to herself, that one so godlike would still
care for her?

The mother was delighted with her son, who rattled away quite at his
ease. He shook hands very cordially with the capitaine--of whose
intended alliance with his own sweetheart he had been informed, and
then as he entered the house with his hand under his mother's arm, he
asked one question about her. "And where is Marie?" said he.
"Marie! oh upstairs; you shall see her after breakfast," said La Mere
Bauche. And so they entered the house, and went in to breakfast
among the guests. Everybody had heard something of the story, and
they were all on the alert to see the young man whose love or want of
love was considered to be of so much importance.