"No, no; not the rose. Put the blue on. You looked quite nice in it the day before yesterday at Aunt Clarice's. Besides, your papa doesn't like the rose, and as he is going with us to the Mercerey's--" "Papa going to the Mercerey's!" "Yes, certainly." "Does he know that there's to be some music?" "Yes." "He knows--and yet he is going?" "Yes. What is there surprising in that?" "Oh, nothing, mama; nothing at all." Whereupon she really left the room, and I was quite alone. Then, without a moment's hesitation, I said to myself: "A marriage on the _tapis_. They're going to show me off to some one. _That's_ why pap is obliged to go." Fancy papa letting himself be dragged by mama to a _soirée musicale_! The whole world will seem topsy-turvy. There are only three places which he finds bearable in the evening--the club, the opera during the ballet, and the little theatres where people go to laugh and amuse themselves generally--the theatres where young girls are not allowed to go, but where I intend to go when I am married. Yes, I'm sure there's an interview in the wind. It must be something of great importance, for mama has been in a state of the highest excitement ever since this morning. She ate no breakfast, and didn't manage to conceal her unrest at all. Not only has she inspected my blue dress carefully, but she has also examined me with equal thoroughness. She fell into a fit of veritable despair on verifying the fact that there was a slight flaw on my features. "What's that?" she cried. "Where? What? mama!" "On the tip of your nose." "Have I anything on the tip of my nose?" "Yes, a horrid gash." "Oh, good gracious! A gash?" Quite horrified, I rushed to the mirror. Then I breathed freely again. It was the merest trifle--where the kitten had given me a pat with its paw. Nothing worth mentioning--a little reddish mark that was hardly visible to the naked eye, and which could easily be got rid of before evening. But in mama's solicitous eyes the little mark assumed the proportions of a disfiguring wound. The tip of my nose has never received so much touching attention before. Mama made me sit still in an armchair during half of the day, with cold-water cloths fixed like a pair of goggles on the said tip of the aforementioned nose. Poor mama! She's so anxious to see me married. It's quite natural, after all. She looks very well herself yet in the evening, and it is awkward to have to drag a big marriageable daughter around at her heels. I don't like it, either, for that matter. I know that I make her look older, and, therefore, as soon as we enter a room in the evening I slip away from her, and try to see as little as possible of her afterward until the carriage is announced. So each goes her own way, and interferes as little as possible with the other.