Page:Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Volume 2.djvu/62

44 old C. sobbed in her napkin; while Livy only saved herself from hysterics, by drinking a glass of water, and Pelagie ate sugar, with her round eyes fixed on her lover's face, without the slightest expression whatever.

When the poet mourned his blighted hopes, and asked wildly of all the elements if he should live or die, Gaston cast reproachful glances at the alien charmer, who had nipped his passion in the bud; and when Jules gave a sudden start, slapped his brow, and declared that he would live for his country, old Marie choked in her coffee, while Madame F. clapped her fat hands, and cried: "It is sublime!"

The poem closed there, and the providential appearance of their donkeys gave the ladies an excuse for retiring to their room, where they laughed till they could laugh no more.

Each meal was as good as a play, and every glimpse they had of the little pair gave fresh food for mirth. Every thing was so formal and polite, so utterly unlike the free-and-easy customs of their native land, that they were kept in alternate states of indignation and amusement the whole time.