For so nicely had Raynal timed the several events
that this threw him all into confusion. He stamped backwards and
forwards, and twisted his mustaches, and swore. This enforced
unpunctuality was a new torture to him. Jacintha told them he was angry,
and that made them nervous and flurried, and their fingers strayed
wildly among hooks and eyes, and all sorts of fastenings; they were not
ready till half-past nine. Conscious they deserved a scolding, they sent
Josephine down first to mollify. She dawned upon the honest soldier so
radiant, so dazzling in her snowy dress, with her coronet of pearls (an
heirloom), and her bridal veil parted, and the flush of conscious beauty
on her cheek, that instead of scolding her, he actually blurted out,
"Well! by St. Denis it was worth waiting half an hour for."
He recovered a quarter of an hour by making the driver gallop. Then
occasional shrieks issued from the carriage that held the baroness. That
ancient lady feared annihilation: she had not come down from a galloping
age.
They drove into the town, drew up at the mayor's house, were received
with great ceremony by that functionary and Picard, and entered the
house.
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