, asked a passing nursemaid the time, thanking her with “How very good of you!” then begged the road-sweeper to tell her grandchildren to come, as she felt cold, adding “A thousand thanks. I am sorry to give you so much trouble!” Suddenly the sky was rent in two: between the punch-and-judy and the horses, against the opening horizon, I had just seen, like a miraculous sign, Mademoiselle’s blue feather. And now Gilberte was running at full speed towards me, sparkling and rosy beneath a cap trimmed with fur, enlivened by the cold, by being late, by her anxiety for a game; shortly before she reached me, she slipped on a piece of ice and, either to regain her balance, or because it appeared to her graceful, or else pretending that she was on skates, it was with outstretched arms that she smilingly advanced, as though to embrace me. “Bravo! bravo! that’s splendid; ‘topping,’ I should say, like you⁠—‘sporting,’ I suppose I ought to say, only I’m a hundred-and-one, a woman of the old school,” exclaimed the lady, uttering, on behalf of the voiceless Champs-Élysées, their thanks to Gilberte for having come, without letting herself be frightened away by the weather. “You are like me, faithful at all costs to our old Champs-Élysées; we are two brave souls!