"We can very well put five in the carriage," replied Mademoiselle des
Touches, on whom Jacqueline turned her back, "even if we were
inconvenienced, which cannot be the case, with your slender figures.
Besides, I should enjoy the pleasure of doing a little service to
Calyste's friends. Your maid, madame, will find a seat by the
coachman, and your luggage, if you have any, can go behind the
carriage; I have no footman with me."
The viscountess was overwhelming in thanks, and complained that her
sister Jacqueline had been in such a hurry to see her niece that she
would not give her time to come properly in her own carriage with
post-horses, though, to be sure, the post-road was not only longer,
but more expensive; she herself was obliged to return almost
immediately to Nantes, where she had left three other little kittens,
who were anxiously awaiting her. Here she put her arm round
Charlotte's neck. Charlotte, in reply, raised her eyes to her mother
with the air of a little victim, which gave an impression to onlookers
that the viscountess bored her four daughters prodigiously by dragging
them on the scene very much as Corporal Trim produces his cap in
"Tristram Shandy.
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