Mr. Elphinstone reflected. "I shall not like parting with you, child," he murmured, half to himself. "Not at all, not at all. But I suppose if René wishes it, as he obviously does . . . And it is not far to Canterbury. Shall you like to go and visit these old French ladies, Anne?" "I do not know," replied the Comte de Flavigny, considering. "You are not coming too, Grandpapa?" "No, no. But Elspeth will be with you." "Perhaps I shall like it. Have they a dog, ces dames, des chats?" "Cats, very probably. But I do not know. I think you will find it interesting, Anne, for a few days. You will be able to play in the garden there. These old ladies"--he referred once more to the letter--"Mme. de Chaulnes and her sister-in-law, can tell you, I expect, all about your father when he was a little boy like you." "Yes," assented the prospective visitor in tones of resignation rather than of anticipation. "But----" He looked mournful. "Yes, my bairn?" "The goldfish!" Mr. Elphinstone laughed. "Oh, the goldfish! That is easily arranged. We will go out directly after breakfast and buy it, while Elspeth is packing." "I could take it with me?" "Well, I don't know. . . . Yes, I suppose you could." Anne fell into meditation on the goldfish. He evidently saw it swimming before him, and the idea of parting so soon from this treasure, not yet even acquired, was clearly distressing. "Then, if I could take it, Grandpapa, perhaps I would not mind very much, as Papa wishes it." "That's a good child!" exclaimed Mr. Elphinstone, relieved. Not that Anne-Hilarion was, as a rule, anything else but good, yet, as he was very sensitive and his grandfather ridiculously tender-hearted, the old man dreaded even the remotest shadow of a difference of opinion. "It will only be for a few days," he went on, "and I think you had better go at once, this afternoon, in fact, so that you will get back all the earlier, in case Papa should return from Italy sooner than we expect." This he said with a view of heartening his grandson, well knowing that the term of 'a few days,' elastic as it was, could hardly see René back from Verona. (2) But if Anne-Hilarion was resigned, Mrs. Saunders received the news of the proposed expedition in a manner indicative of the highest disapproval. Such a plan was, she declared, against sense and nature; she could not imagine what the Marquis was thinking of. He must be clean daft. No one but a man would have conceived of such a scheme. She supposed that was the way they did things in France. Fifty odd miles to Canterbury--seven hours at the very least; the bairn would take his death of fatigue; and here was Glenauchtie proposing that they should start that very afternoon! She was a little mollified, but not greatly, on hearing that they were only to go as far as Rochester that day, and sleep there, continuing their journey next morning.