'Don't be so sure of that,' said the little lady of the house, bustling into the room. 'Switzerland again, of course. I go there! not a bit, and get lost down a chasm in a glacier. Mon Dieu! fancy that, and I might at the moment have on my best gown and best bonnet. Climb your mountain peaks, indeed! you will see me put my head out of the top of one of these chimneys first, and cry "sweep, sweep!" Deschwanden may go, and you may go, Nicholas, if you like, but I remain at Paris. Would you have me migrate to the land of barbarism, at my time of life, and at a time, too, when the metropolis is a scene of the most charming incidents? My faith! It is as good as a play to see what is going on here--and you would tear me away between the acts, make me shut up the novel at the first volume! You are much mistaken if you think you will get me to Switzerland.' 'But what is to be done, mother?' asked Nicholas; 'my father has set his heart on returning to his father-land, and I verily believe it would be his death to have to forego what has been his desire for many years.' 'Let him go.' 'But he cannot leave you behind.' 'Why not? Let him imagine I am dead. Let him say to himself, "I am a widower once again; I am free as a bird, I will spread my wings, and seek a distant clime." Pretty bird he'd make, though! You Germans have no neatness, no delicacy and buoyancy of construction. You are great hawks--penguins, who never rise. But we French are ever on tiptoe, ready to soar; we only want a breath of gas in our bones, a few feathers on our backs, and you would find the sky swarm with us, laughing, chattering, wheeling here and there, coquetting, always polite, always graceful, and never flying beyond sight of la belle France.' 'But my father cannot in conscience----' 'Stay! never mention that word in my hearing. There it is, that is the mischief of it. Conscience is the lead that keeps you always in one position. I thought to have died of laughing. I saw in a shop window a range of dolls,--fat things rounded off below, without perceptible legs. You knocked them about, and they rocked to and fro, and always righted in the same position. I rushed into the shop, and I said--"Oblige me, those are German toys, are they not?" "Madame, you are right," was the answer I received. Well, Nicholas! I thought at once of you and your father, leaded with your dreadful dumpy conscience. My faith! why does not this precious conscience keep the corporal from going to Versailles?' 'What do you mean, mother? he is not going there.' 'Yes, he is. He has received orders transferring him there; he has to attend in the palace, as one of the guard. If he is so fond of me, let him refuse. You say he can't,--he is ordered there. Well, there is no help for it, he leaves me. Now let him suppose he is ordered off to Switzerland; there he goes. I will order him off. Right about face, quick, march!' 'Surely, mother, you will not be so heartless?'