If she were so much interested in one member as to be willing to undergo the pains and penalties of a domiciliary visit, it was strange that she never inquired after the existence of her charge's friends and relations from one who might very probably have heard something of them.

They settled that Madame Babette must believe that the Marquise and Clement were dead; and admired her for her reticence in never speaking of Virginie.

The truth was, I suspect, that she was so desirous of her nephews success by this time, that she did not like letting any one into the secret of Virginie's whereabouts who might interfere with their plan.

However, it was arranged between Clement and his humble friend, that the former, dressed in the peasant's clothes in which he had entered Paris, but smartened up in one or two particulars, as if, although a countryman, he had money to spare, should go and engage a sleeping-room in the old Breton Inn; where, as I told you, accommodation for the night was to be had.

This was accordingly done, without exciting Madame Babette's suspicions, for she was unacquainted with the Normandy accent, and consequently did not perceive the exaggeration of it which Monsieur de Crequy adopted in order to disguise his pure Parisian.