Everyone assisted in seeing us off the premises. They declared it to be a melancholy pleasure, a statement hard to reconcile with their beaming faces. Catherine alone was grave and immovable as the Man with the Iron Mask. Yet she actually presented us--this downright, determined, apparently unromantic woman--with buttonholes of small white roses tied up with white ribbon: ribbon that in our grandmothers' days, I believe, was called _love_ ribbon. "We shall look quite bridal," we said, as she placed them in the destined receptacle next our hearts. "Catherine, why have you never married?" Catherine laughed. "Thereby hangs a tale," she replied, actually blushing. "It has not been for want of offers, you may be sure; I might have married twenty times over had I so wished." And so we gathered that Catherine, too, had had her little romance. Perhaps it had helped to form her character, and develop her capacities. "And now, be sure that some day you come back to Morlaix," she added, as she finally accomplished her delicate task to her satisfaction. "Shall we find you here?" we asked. "You may have married and gone away." "To toil and slave like Madame Mirmiton!" cried Catherine. "I would not marry if it was the President of the Republic, or even the Marquis de Carabas. Besides, who would have me at my age? No? no! I know when I am well off. Men, do you see, are not angels; they are much nearer allied to the opposite, sauf votre respect! Of course, _gentlemen_, I admit, _are_ angels--sometimes. But then, no gentleman would have me. No; I am a fixture, here, every bit as much as the doors and the windows. Monsieur and Madame and the hotel would go to ruin without me." And, although Monsieur and Madame assisted at this conference, Catherine's statement went uncontradicted. She was certainly their right hand, and added no little to the popularity of the establishment. Finally we were off. The omnibus took our traps, whilst we walked up Jacob's Ladder. We let our gaze linger and rest upon all the old familiar points; the quaint gables, the dormer windows in the red, red roofs; the latticed panes, behind which life must seem less sad and sorrowful than it really is; the antiquarian and his old curiosities. He knew we were leaving, and was on the look-out for us. The pale, spiritual face stood out conspicuously amidst its surroundings: the spiritual strangely contrasting with the material. The eyes looked into ours with their sad, dreamy, far-away gaze, so full of the pain and suffering of life. Behind him stood his Adonis of a son, the flush of genius making the countenance yet more beautiful. Perched on his shoulder was the cherub. He held out his arms as soon as he saw us, and seemed quite ready to go forth with us and, as Catherine would have said, see the world. Some of the old Louis Quatorze furniture had been transferred from the seclusion of the monastery to the glitter of the outer world, and here found a temporary repose.