him now to communicate these tidings to Marie herself.

"Could not you tell her?" he had said to his mother, with very little
of that manliness in his face on which his mother now so prided
herself. But La Mere Bauche explained to him that it was a part of
the general agreement that Marie was to hear his decision from his
own mouth.

"But you need not regard it," said the capitaine, with the most
indifferent air in the world. "The girl expects it. Only she has
some childish idea that she is bound till you yourself release her.
I don't think she will be troublesome." Adolphe at that moment did
feel that he should have liked to kick the capitaine out of his
mother's house.

And where should the meeting take place? In the hall of the bath-
house, suggested Madame Bauche; because, as she observed, they could
walk round and round, and nobody ever went there at that time of day.
But to this Adolphe objected; it would be so cold and dismal and
melancholy.

The capitaine thought that Mere Bauche's little parlour was the
place; but La Mere herself did not like this. They might be
overheard, as she well knew; and she guessed that the meeting would
not conclude without some sobs that would certainly be bitter and
might perhaps be loud.

"Send her up to the grotto, and I will follow her," said Adolphe. On
this therefore they agreed. Now the grotto was a natural excavation
in a high rock, which stood precipitously upright over the