I was going back to Paris after a few days’ holiday. When I got to the station the train was crowded. I peeped into every carriage, hoping to find a place. There was one in the last carriage, but two big baskets, out of which ducks and hens were peeping, filled the seat. After a long moment’s hesitation, I decided to get in. I apologized for disturbing the passengers, but a man in a blouse said: “Wait a moment, mademoiselle; I’ll take the baskets down.” And while I held the basket of fruit which he had on his knees, he slipped the baskets with the ducks and hens under the seat. The ducks did not like it, and told us so. The hens dropped their heads as if they had been insulted, and the peasant’s wife talked to them, calling them by their names. When I was seated, and the ducks were quiet, the passenger opposite me asked the peasant whether he was taking the birds to market. “No, sir,” said the man. “I am taking them to my son, who is going to be married the day after to-morrow.” His face was beaming, and he looked around as if he wanted everybody to know how happy he was. An old woman who was hunched up in the corner among three pillows, and who filled double the space she should occupy, began grumbling about peasants who took up such a lot of room in the train. The train started, and the passenger who had asked about the birds was opening his newspaper, when the peasant said to him: “My boy is in Paris. He is working in a shop, and he is going to marry a young lady who is in a shop, too.” The passenger let his open paper drop to his knees. He held it with one hand and, leaning forward a little, asked: “Is the fiancée pretty?” “We do not know,” said the man. “We haven’t seen her yet.” “Really?” said the passenger. “And if she were ugly, and you did not like her?” “That is one of the things that can always happen,” answered the countryman. “But I think we shall like her, because our boy is too fond of us to take an ugly wife.” “Besides,” said the little woman next me, “if she pleases our Philip, she will please us, too.” She turned to me, and her gentle eyes were full of smiles. She had a little, round, fresh face, and I could not believe that she was the mother of a son who was old enough to marry. She wanted to know whether I was going to Paris too, and when I said yes, the passenger opposite began to joke. “I should like to bet,” he said, “that this young lady is the fiancée. She has come to meet her father--and mother-in-law, without telling them who she is.” Everybody looked at me, and I got very red. The countryman and his wife said, together: “We should be very pleased if it were true.” I told them that it was not true, but the passenger reminded them that I had walked up and down twice as if I were looking for somebody, and that I had been a long time making up my mind to get into that carriage. All the other passengers laughed, and I explained as well as I could that this was the only place I had found.