"Oh! our Rose! our Rose!"
With a big bouquet between her little hands Rose had stepped forward. She
had been learning a very fine compliment for a fortnight past, and that
very morning she had recited it to her mother without making a single
mistake. But when she found herself there among all these people she
could not recollect a word of it. Still that did not trouble her, she was
already a very bold little damsel, and she frankly dropped her bouquet
and sprang at the necks of Mathieu and Marianne, exclaiming in her
shrill, flute-like voice: "Grandpapa, grandmamma, it's your fete, and I
kiss you with all my heart!"
And that suited everybody remarkably well. They even found it far better
than any compliment. Laughter and clapping of hands and acclamations
again arose. Then they forthwith began to take their seats at table.
This, however, was quite an affair, so large was the horse-shoe table
spread out under the oak on the short, freshly cut grass. First Mathieu
and Marianne, still arm in arm, went ceremoniously to seat themselves in
the centre with their backs towards the trunk of the great tree. On
Mathieu's left, Marthe and Denis, Louise and her husband, notary Mazaud,
took their places, since it had been fittingly decided that the husbands
and wives should not be separated.
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