Page:Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Volume 2.djvu/136

118 shoulder. Also, that a servant with two dogs and a gun had touched his hat and said, "Oui, monsieur le comte," as he shut the door.

A slight thrill pervaded the statues as this fact was made known, and each began to wonder how the elegant aristocrat would behave. To say that he stared, feebly expresses the fixity of his noble gaze, as it rested in turn upon the three faces opposite. When satisfied, he also produced a paper and began to read. But Matilda caught a big, black eye peering over the sheet more than once, as she peered over the top of her own.

"I don't like him. Remember, we don't speak French," whispered the discreet Amanda.

"I can swear that I don't," said Lavinia, with an irrepressible smile, as she remembered the "blue son."

"The language of the eye is not forbidden me, and I can't sit baking under a newspaper all the way," returned Matilda, whose blond curls had evidently met with the great creature's approval.

A slight pucker about the Comte's lips caused a thrill of horror to pervade the ladies, as Amanda murmured under her breath,—