Rose was now the mistress of Beaurepaire; she set Jacintha, and Dard, and the doctor, to pack up everything of value in the house.

"Do it this moment!" she cried; "once that notary gets possession of the house, it may be too late.

Enough of folly and helplessness.

We have fooled away house and lands; our movables shall not follow them." The moment she had set the others to work, she wrote a single line to Riviere to tell him the chateau and lands were sold, and would he come to Beaurepaire at once?
She ran with it herself to Bigot's auberge, the nearest post-office, and then back to comfort her mother.
The baroness was seated in her arm-chair, moaning and wringing her hands, and Rose was nursing and soothing her, and bathing her temples with her last drop of eau de Cologne, and trying in vain to put some of her own courage into her, when in came Josephine radiant with happiness, crying "Joy! joy! joy!" and told her strange tale, with this difference, that she related her own share in it briefly and coldly, and was more eloquent than I about the strange soldier's goodness, and the interest her mother had awakened in his heart.

And she told about the old woman in the Rue Quincampoix, her rugged phrases, and her noble, tender heart.
The baroness, deaf to Rose's consolations, brightened up directly at Josephine's news, and at her glowing face, as she knelt pouring the good news, and hope, and comfort, point blank into her.