“There they are still,” he said to himself, discontentedly.  “Madame Danville in the same place on the seat; my master, the bridegroom, dutifully next to her; Mademoiselle Rose, the bride, bashfully next to him; Monsieur Trudaine, the amateur apothecary brother, affectionately next to her; and Monsieur Lomaque, our queer land-steward, officially in waiting on the whole party.  There they all are indeed, incomprehensibly wasting their time still in looking at nothing!  Yes,” continued Monsieur Justin, lifting his eyes wearily, and staring hard, first up the river at Rouen, then down the river at the setting sun; “yes, plague take them! looking at nothing, absolutely and positively at nothing, all this while.”

Here Monsieur Justin yawned again, and, returning to the garden, sat himself down in an arbor and resignedly went to sleep.

If the valet had ventured near the five persons whom he had been apostrophizing from a distance, and if he had been possessed of some little refinement of observation, he could hardly have failed to remark that the bride and bridegroom of the morrow, and their companions on either side, were all, in a greater or less degree, under the influence of some secret restraint, which affected their conversation, their gestures, and even the expression of their faces.  Madame Danville—­a handsome, richly-dressed old lady, with very bright eyes, and a quick, suspicious manner—­looked composedly and happily enough, as long as her attention was fixed on her son.  But when she turned from him toward the bride, a hardly perceptible uneasiness passed over her face—­an uneasiness which only deepened to positive distrust and dissatisfaction whenever she looked toward Mademoiselle Trudaine’s brother.  In the same way, her son, who was all smiles and happiness while he was speaking with his future wife, altered visibly in manner and look exactly as his mother altered, whenever the presence of Monsieur Trudaine specially impressed itself on his attention.  Then, again, Lomaque, the land-steward—­quiet, sharp, skinny Lomaque, with the submissive manner, and the red-rimmed eyes—­never looked up at his master’s future brother-in-law without looking away again rather uneasily, and thoughtfully drilling holes in the grass with his long sharp-pointed cane.  Even the bride herself—­the pretty, innocent girl, with her childish shyness of manner—­seemed to be affected like the others.  Doubt, if not distress, overshadowed her face from time to time, and the hand which her lover held trembled a little, and grew restless, when she accidentally caught her brother’s eye.