"We had _déjeuner_ prepared for you at your house," said Madame, when the first greetings were over. "I knew you'd want to go there the first thing. Then to-night you are to come and dine with us. I feel as if I hadn't seen you for years." "But we've never met Madame Berthier before," Jules replied, making a feeble attempt to be gay, for he saw that Blanche's meeting with her mother threatened to upset her. Madame blushed like a young girl, and turning, led the way to the carriages. "One of these is for you and Jules," she said. "I don't mean just for now, but for all the time you are here. Félix chose the horse for you, dear, and she's so gentle you can drive her alone if you want to." "I'm going to put the three girls and their mother in the big carriage," Berthier said to Jules, "and you and Madeleine and I will follow them." The arrival of his stepdaughter seemed to have given him as much pleasure as any of the others, and his good-natured face was radiant. "Jump in, girls," he cried, holding out his hand to Blanche. "We'll have to turn those lilies of yours into roses this summer, my dear. Here, Jeanne, stop flirting with Jules, or we won't let you come with us. You wouldn't have known our little Louise, Blanche, if you hadn't expected to find her here, would you? She's grown an inch in four months. It's the most wonderful thing I've ever known in my life. And would you believe it?--she's become a perfect chatterbox--she's worse than Jeanne. Sometimes I have to run out of the room to read my paper in peace and have a quiet smoke." The whole family seemed to have agreed to assume toward Blanche the bantering tone that Jules had adopted. When they reached the house they continued their gayety, though Blanche, tired from her journey, sank weakly on the couch in the _salon_. She looked around, however, and saw that the room had been redecorated, probably by Monsieur Berthier, and when she felt rested she went all over the house and observed many new pieces of furniture, and many touches here and there that made the place more attractive and homelike. "Ah, it is so good to be at home," she said to her mother when they were alone; and then Madame Berthier took her in her arms and kissed her on the forehead and told her she must have courage for Jules' sake. After the excitement of Paris and Vienna, Jules found it hard to accustom himself to the dull life at Boulogne. He bought a small yacht, and found amusement in sailing with his new acquaintances, and sometimes, when the weather was fine, he took Blanche and the girls with him. He also occupied himself with the little garden around his cottage; but this soon bored him, and he gave it over to Monsieur Berthier's gardener, who came every few days to look after it. In the afternoons he drove with Blanche far into the country, and sometimes they stopped at a little _café_ by the roadside and had an early dinner, and then hurried home before the damp night should close around them.