Lomaque's observant
eyes marked the graceful arrangement of the flower-beds, and the
delicate whiteness of the curtains that hung behind the
badly-glazed narrow windows. "This must be the place," he said to
himself, as he knocked at the door with his stick. "I can see the
traces of her hand before I cross the threshold."
The door was opened. "Pray, does the citizen Maurice--" Lomaque
began, not seeing clearly, for the first moment, in the dark
little passage.
Before he could say any more his hand was grasped, his carpet-bag
was taken from him, and a well-known voice cried, "Welcome! a
thousand thousand times welcome, at last! Citizen Maurice is not
at home; but Louis Trudaine takes his place, and is overjoyed to
see once more the best and dearest of his friends!"
"I hardly know you again. How you are altered for the better!"
exclaimed Lomaque, as they entered the parlor of the cottage.
"Remember that you see me after a long freedom from anxiety.
Since I have lived here, I have gone to rest at night, and have
not been afraid of the morning," replied Trudaine. He went out
into the passage while he spoke, and called at the foot of the
one flight of stairs which the cottage possessed, "Rose! Rose!
come down! The friend whom you most wished to see has arrived at
last."
She answered the summons immediately. The frank, friendly warmth
of her greeting; her resolute determination, after the first
inquiries were over, to help the guest to take off his upper coat
with her own hands, so confused and delighted Lomaque, that he
hardly knew which way to turn, or what to say.
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