"You pair of babies! Adéline, the very wisest thing that you can do is to go right back home again."
"They'd stick her into a convent, mother. Her father told me himself he meant to. Besides, she's _your_ daughter now as much as his. We stopped over in New York yesterday and got married."
"Good gracious! I never heard anything so preposterous. And how do you propose to live?"
"We mean to live with _you_, mother, to comfort your failing years like dutiful children?"
"Well, now, that really is kind of you, I must say. The sooner I get back to my quiet little house at St. Euphrase, then, the better. I cannot afford to support a family of three at Long Branch. It costs a great deal too much for the mere living, not to speak of the dressing. Again, at St. Euphrase, I can make you young people work for your board, as, of course, being honest, you would like. Randolph shall dig the garden and Adéline shall milk the cows. That will save me two servants' wages."
"_Mais, madame_," whimpered Adéline, "Randolphe has me promessed to come to Long Branch for to see ze gaieties."
"My child, you have no clothes to appear in. You will have to look at the gaieties from your bedroom window, and even your meals will have to be brought you. Are you aware that three new gowns every day is the smallest number in which any self-respecting woman can appear at Long Branch? You need not smile, it is no laughing matter. You will compromise me hopelessly if you come downstairs, and, I may add, that any things Mlle. Petitôt may send you will not help you here. Tailor-made gowns are _de rigueur_, and above all, they must be indubitably new, and worn for the very first time. I would recommend a bilious attack, my dear; keep your room. And, after all, a fictitious attack of bile is better than the real thing. I will arrange for our going back to Canada, and with that view, perhaps, I had better begin by writing your mother. She will be anxious to know what has become of you, and I dare say I shall be able to make your peace now, more easily than later."
"Ah! _Chère madame_, do not write. Zey vill send me to ze _couvent_. I know so vell. And never to come out again. And zere I shall be made make ze _grande rétraite_ for always for marrying me vidout consent. And it will be so _triste_, have _pitié, ma mere_."