“His daughter,” he said, “was not rich: she had a great deal of hard-work and traveling before her to find out what had become of her husband, who had been wounded if not killed at Jenappes, and she could not afford to throw her money away in inns.” There was a good deal of skirmishing on these points, and a good deal of laughter and jest upon the part of our hostess, who seemed as well contented, and as comfortable as if there were no such thing as a guillotine in the world, though her table d’hôte rather suffered from time to time, in consequence of her guests being deprived of the organs of mastication amongst others. The whole, however, was settled at length, and two days afterward, I was informed that Madame Bonfin had arrived with her daughter in a little post-chaise. The good priest was not yet well enough to quit his room, but I ran down the dingy stair-case into the court-yard, and as I expected, found Madame de Salins and Mariette just getting out of a dirty little vehicle, with a wooden apron, which bore the name of a cabriolet. Madame de Salins embraced me kindly, and I did not forget to call her Aunt Clarisse, while Mariette literally sprang into my arms, and I thought would have smothered me with caresses. If there had been any doubts previously in the minds of the people of the inn, they were all dissipated by the tenderness of this meeting, and Madame de Salins and her daughter followed me up stairs to the room of good Father Bonneville. One of the waiters accompanied us, but there the meeting was conducted as naturally as it had been below, and the words, “my daughter” and “my father,” passed habitually between the good priest and the high-born lady without any pause or hesitation. Her own apartments were next shown to Madame de Salins, and her baggage was brought up from below, when I remarked that every thing had been carefully marked with the initials C. B., to signify Clarisse Bonfin.