Page:Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Volume 2.djvu/60

42 and twisting his tawny mustache with an air that gave him the effect of being six feet in height and broad in proportion.

How he greeted his fiancée they knew not, but the murmur of voices came from the room in steady flow for hours, and Gaston flew in and out with an air of immense importance.

At dinner the strangers were proudly presented to M. le Colonel, and received affable bows from the little man, who flattered himself that he could talk English, and insisted on speaking an unknown tongue, evidently wondering at their stupidity in not understanding their own language.

He escorted Madame down, sat between her and Pelagie, but talked only to her; while the girl sat silent and ate her dinner with an appetite which no emotion could diminish. It was very funny to see the small warrior do his wooing of the daughter through the mother; and the buxom widow played her part so well that an unenlightened observer would have said she was the bride-elect. She smiled, she sighed, she discoursed, she coquetted, and now and then plucked out her handkerchief and wept at the thought of losing the angel, who was