Shawl-Straps | Page 6

scandalised Lavinia, informing him that she did not
understand French, assumed the demeanour of a griffin, and glared

stonily into space, when she was not dislocating her neck trying to see
if the top-heavy luggage had not tumbled off behind.
Poor Amanda was thus left a prey to the beery one; for, having at first
courteously responded to his paternal remarks and expressed an interest
in the state of France, she could not drop the conversation all at once,
even when the friend of Victor Hugo became so disagreeable that it is
to be hoped the poet has not many such. He recited poems, he sung
songs, he made tender confidences, and finished by pressing the hand
of Mademoiselle to his lips. On being told that such demonstrations
were not permitted to strangers in America, he beat his breast and cried
out, 'My God, so beautiful and so cold! You do not comprehend that I
am but a child. Pardon, and smile again I conjure you.'
But Mademoiselle would not smile; and, folding her hands in her cloak,
appeared to slumber. Whereat the gray-headed infant groaned
pathetically, cast his eyes heavenward, and drank more ale, muttering
to himself, and shaking his head as if his emotions could not be entirely
suppressed.
These proceedings caused Lavinia to keep her eye on him, being
prepared for any outbreak, from a bullet all round to proposals to both
her charges at once.
With this smouldering bomb-shell inside, and the firm conviction that
one if not all the trunks were lying in the dust some miles behind, it
may be inferred that duenna Livy did not enjoy that break-neck drive,
lurching and bumping up hill and down, with nothing between them
and destruction apparently but the little humpback, who drove
recklessly.
In this style they rattled up to the Porte de Brest, feeling that they had
reached Dinan 'only by the grace of God,' as the beery man expressed it,
when he bowed and vanished, still oppressed with the gloomy
discovery that American women did not appreciate him.
While Amanda made inquiries at an office, and Matilda had raptures
over the massive archway crowned with yellow flowers, Lavinia was

edified by a new example of woman's right to labour.
Close by was a clean, rosy old woman, whose unusual occupation
attracted our spinster's attention. Whisking off the wheels of a diligence,
the old lady greased them one by one, and put them on again with the
skill and speed of a regular blacksmith, and then began to pile many
parcels into a char apparently waiting for them.
She was a brisk, cheery old soul, with the colour of a winter-apple in
her face, plenty of fire in her quick black eyes, and a mouthful of fine
teeth, though she must have been sixty. She was dressed in the costume
of the place: a linen cap with several sharp gables to it, a gay kerchief
over her shoulders, a blue woollen gown short enough to display a pair
of sturdy feet and legs in neat shoes with bunches of ribbons on the
instep and black hose. A gray apron, with pockets and a bib, finished
her off; making a very sensible as well as picturesque costume.
She was still hard at it when a big boy appeared, and began to heave the
trunks into another char; but gave out at the second, which was large.
Instantly the brisk old woman put him aside, hoisted in the big boxes
without help, and, catching up the shafts of the heavily laden cart,
trotted away with it at a pace which caused the Americans (who prided
themselves on their muscle) to stare after her in blank amazement.
When next seen she was toiling up a steep street, still ahead of the lazy
boy, who slowly followed with the lighter load. It did not suit Lavinia's
ideas of the fitness of things to have an old woman trundle three heavy
trunks while she herself carried nothing but a parasol, and she would
certainly have lent a hand if the vigorous creature had not gone at such
a pace that it was impossible to overtake her till she backed her cart up
before a door in most scientific style, and with a bow, a smile, and a
courteous wave of the hand, informed them that 'here the ladies would
behold the excellent Madame C.'
They did behold and also receive a most cordial welcome from the
good lady, who not only embraced them with effusion, but turned her
house upside down for their accommodation, merely because they
came recommended to her hospitality by a former lodger who had won

her kind old heart.
While she purred over them, the luggage was being bumped upstairs,
the old woman shouldering trunk after trunk, and trudging