Madame Seraskier strained me to her kind heart, and blessed and kissed
me again and again, and rained her warm tears on my face; and hers was
the last figure I saw as our fly turned into the Rue de la Tour on our
way to London, Colonel Ibbetson exclaiming--
"Gad! who's the lovely young giantess that seems so fond of you, you
little rascal, hey? By George! you young Don Giovanni, I'd have given
something to be in your place! And who's that nice old man with the long
green coat and the red ribbon? A _vieille moustache_, I suppose: almost
like a gentleman. Precious few Frenchmen can do that!"
Such was Colonel Ibbetson.
And then and there, even as he spoke, a little drop of sullen, chill
dislike to my guardian and benefactor, distilled from his voice, his
aspect, the expression of his face, and his way of saying things,
suddenly trickled into my consciousness--never to be whiped away!
As for so poor Mimsey, her grief was so overwhelming that she could not
come out and wish me goodbye like the others; and it led, as I
afterwards heard, to a long illness, the worst she ever had; and when
she recovered it was to find that her beautiful mother was no more.
[Illustration:]
Madame Seraskier died of the cholera, and so did le Pere et la Mere
Francois, and Madame Pele, and one of the Napoleonic prisoners (not M.
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