hire Daniel Bredin’s caleche for the mountain journey thence to Granpere, without all the facts of the case coming to the ears of Madame Faragon.  And when she had heard the news, of course she told it to George Voss.  She had interested herself very keenly in the affair of George’s love, partly because she had a soft heart of her own and loved a ray of romance to fall in upon her as she sat fat and helpless in her easy-chair, and partly because she thought that the future landlord of the Hotel de la Poste at Colmar ought to be regarded as a bigger man and a better match than any Swiss linen-merchant in the world.  ’I can’t think what it is that your father means,’ she had said.  ’When he and I were young, he used not to be so fond of the people of Basle, and he didn’t think so much then of a peddling buyer of sheetings and shirtings.’  Madame Faragon was rather fond of alluding to past times, and of hinting to George that in early days, had she been willing, she might have been mistress of the Lion d’Or at Granpere, instead of the Poste at Colmar.  George never quite believed the boast, as he knew that Madame Faragon was at least ten years older than his father.  ‘He used to think,’ continued Madame Faragon, ’that there was nothing better than a good house in the public line, with a well-spirited woman inside it to stand her ground and hold her own.  But everything is changed now, since the railroads came up.  The pedlars become merchants, and the respectable old shopkeepers must go to the wall.’  George would hear all this in silence, though he knew that his old friend was endeavouring to comfort him by making little of the Basle linen-merchant.  Now, when Madame Faragon learned that Michel Voss and Adrian Urmand had gone through Colmar back from Basle on their way to Granpere, she immediately foresaw what was to happen.  Marie’s marriage was to be hurried on, George was to be thrown overboard, and the pedlar’s pack was to be triumphant over the sign of the innkeeper.

‘If I were you, George, I would dash in among them at once,’ said Madame Faragon.

George was silent for a minute or two, leaving the room and returning to it before he made any answer.  Then he declared that he would dash in among them at Granpere.

‘It will be better to go over and see it all settled,’ he said.

‘But, George, you won’t quarrel?’

’What do you mean by quarrelling?  I don’t suppose that this man and I can be very dear friends when we meet each other.’

’You won’t have any fighting?  O, George, if I thought there was going to be fighting, I would go myself to prevent it.’  Madame Faragon no doubt was sincere in her desire that there should be no fighting; but, nevertheless, there was a life and reality about this little affair which had a gratifying effect upon her.  ’If I thought I could do any good, I really would go,’ she said again afterwards.  But George did not encourage her to make the attempt.