"Anne, you _must_ be quiet!" said his 'uncle,' giving him a little shake, and speaking with a severity which he had never thought to employ towards him. He might as well have tried to restrain a thunderstorm; he had better have been dealing with a refractory Chouan. Anne was now physically incapable of obeying him, nor were the narrow confines of the chaise sufficient to enclose the torrents of his woe. La Vireville's heart sank as the vehicle came to a standstill, and in another moment the head of the postilion, a Norman youth with a flaming crop of hair, appeared like a setting sun at the window. La Vireville instantly motioned to him to proceed. The youth continued to make signs outside the glass, while other heads, of a rustic type, began to gather behind him. At last, rapidly losing his temper, La Vireville let down the glass. "What the devil have you pulled up for?" he demanded. "Go on, confound you! We don't want to stop here!" "I thought something was wrong," responded the youth, though how he could have heard anything through the beat of his horses' hoofs was hard to say. But by now Anne's lamentations, flowing through the opened window, were convincing the inhabitants of the little town that the postilion's surmise was just. "There is nothing whatever wrong," asserted La Vireville shortly, and, on the surface, mendaciously. "Drive on at once!" And he began to pull up the window. Ere he could fulfil his intention a large, knotted hand was laid upon it, and its frame became the setting for another study in genre--a large, solemn, be-whiskered old face surmounted by a hat of ancient fashion decorated with a tricolour cockade. The sight of this emblem, and still more of the parti-coloured sash crossing its wearer's breast, caused in the Chouan an outburst of silent blasphemy. From absurd the situation had become dangerous. The worst had come upon them--the intervention of officialdom--and that in a place where they need never have encountered it but for Anne-Hilarion's unfortunate access of woe. "Well, citizen, and why have you stopped here?" demanded this apparition. "Parbleu, citizen, that is just what I want to know!" ejaculated the émigré, a trifle taken aback. "The postilion took it into his head to pull up without orders, because he said he heard my little nephew crying--as you perceive." "In truth, I do perceive it," returned the ancient drily, with his hand to his ear to catch La Vireville's reply through the all-pervading sound of sobbing. "And what is he crying for?" Since La Vireville could hardly reply, "Because he is suddenly overcome with longing for his émigré father and his English grandfather in London, whither I am taking him," he said, much more tamely, "Because, citizen, he is tired, and perhaps a little hungry." The old man bent his gaze upon Anne, who, looking up at that moment, suspended a howl to return the compliment. "Poor child!" he said unexpectedly. "You are in haste, citizen?"