“You’d better, you dear old thing, if you value your life. I shall have to[64] tell Victor about this. How he will laugh! I do all I can to make him laugh and to amuse him when he is with me, for it is so dull for him when he is obliged to stay at Melun. When his regimental duties are over he has nothing to do in the evening but to sit in his quarters and study up ballistics, as he calls it, and look at my picture by way of refreshment.”

[64]

Papa Bouchard sniffed. He commonly sniffed at the mention of Captain de Meneval’s name.

“But,” continued Léontine, trying to curl Papa Bouchard’s scanty hair, using her pretty fingers for curling tongs, “he won’t be so lonely now at Melun, for his old chum, Major Fallière, is stationed there, too, and he and Victor are like brothers. You know, dear Papa Bouchard, that you yourself admitted Major Fallière’s friendship to be a letter of recommendation to any man. He is called the Pink of Military Propriety, and if Victor led the[65] larky life you so unjustly suspect him of, he couldn’t be friends with Major Fallière, who is positively straitlaced.”

[65]

“I can’t say I ever saw a really straitlaced major,” replied Papa Bouchard.

“And I have not yet seen this dear old P. M. P. He was in Algiers when Victor and I were married—and he has been so little in Paris since his return that he has not yet had a chance to call. But he has sent me word by Victor that he already loves me, and I hope to see him in a few days, for Victor has promised to let me come out to Melun and dine at the Pigeon House.”

“The Pigeon House!”

“Yes. Why not? You’ll be going there yourself, I dare say, now that you have eloped from Aunt Céleste. Oh, you’ll be a desperate character in time, I have no doubt. I see it in your eye. Victor and I, though, shall keep watch on you, if you go too far and too fast!”

[66]This was a nice way for a ward to talk to her trustee—and such a trustee as Monsieur Bouchard! Therefore Papa Bouchard called up his most resolute air of disapproval, and said:

[66]

“I am afraid the Pigeon House is hardly a proper place for you to go to, Léontine.”

“If I thought that I should have been out there long ago,” responded this sprightly imp. “But, 

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