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Honor blushed to her very ears. She and Stephanie had been playing only that day with Loulou and Toinette, the two youngest pupils, the old nursery game, never dreaming of harm.
How does your your family (Honor could not somehow bring herself to say House; it sounded so undemocratic!) feel about the Republic?
We do not recognize it! said Jacqueline calmly. For us, it does not exist. We serve his sacred Majesty Louis Philippe Robert, whom you probably know only as the Duc dOrleans.
I dont know him at all! said poor Honor.
Jacqueline gave her a compassionate smile. His Majesty lives in retirement! she said. Little people like thee may be excused for an ignorance which is rather the fault of others than of thyself, Moriole. For the rest, we bide our time! We follow the customs of our House, and mate so nearly as may be with our equals.
She then went on to tell Honor of the Fate that awaited her. She was to remain another year at school. Then, when she was eighteen, she was to be married, to the Sieur de Virelai, a nobleman of their own neighborhood, a friend of her fathers. He was somewhat older than her father, but a grand seigneur , with one of the historic castles of France.
When I am the Lady of Virelai, my poor Honor, said Jacqueline, you must visit me, you must indeed. I shall receive you with pleasure.
The supper bell rang just then, and the future Lady of Virelai jumped up with more animation than she often showed.
There are to be apple fritters for supper! she cried. Margoton told me so! Quick, Moriole, or those greedy children will get the top ones.
Why shouldnt they? asked Honor, as they sped up the allée . Therell be plenty for every one.
Jacqueline turned a look of surprise on her.
The top ones, she said, are the last off the griddle; naturally, one desires them!
CHAPTER III THE MOUNTAINEERS
Every girl, Catholic and Protestant alike, had laid a flower on the Saints shrine, the pretty little marble shrine at the end of the garden, with the yellow roses climbing over it. Every girl had presented her gift to Madame at breakfast, to the good ladys unbounded astonishment. They had been making the gifts under her benevolent nose for a month past, but she had seen nothing; Soeur Séraphine said so, and she ought to know. The steel beads of Honors neck chain (Honor was not skilful with her needle, but she could string beads with the best!) had flashed in sun and lamp light, had dropped on the floor and been rescued from corners and cracks; Madame never noticed. She did not even notice when Maria Pattersons handkerchief case fell into the soup, which, as Patricia said, served Maria right for tatting at table. Soeur Séraphine saw, and Maria got no pudding, but Madame Madeleine never so much as looked that way, and never faltered in her recital of the virtues and sufferings of St. Zita.
She almost wept with pleasure over her gifts; never, she declared, were such charming objects seen. And of a utility! Tiens! this beautiful blotter, how it would adorn her desk! And the exquisite chain! Would it not sustain her spectacle case, which in future would never, as had so often happened, become wholly lost? And Ma Patricia! this beautiful scarf cannot be for me: tell me not so, my child! It is for a princess rather! etc., etc.
Dear Madame Madeleine! Surely her birthday was the happiest day of the happy year for herself and all of us.
After the presentation, all was joyous bustle and hurry: baskets to pack, shawls and cloaks to collect, fiacres to summon; all for the annual expedition to the Rochers de Meillerie , the most wonderful picnic place in the
world. The fiacres (three of them! it made quite a procession!) took the party down to the lake, where the little steamer lay at her pier, the smoke pouring from her funnel. What terror lest they should be late! What frantic signals waved from the six windows of the procession of fiacres ! The steamer gave no sign, but puffed away stolidly; they had been on board half an hour, sitting on their camp stools in a serried phalanx, before she rang her bell, shrieked thrice through her whistle and began her leisurely progress across the lake.
What a voyage of wonder that was! The morning was crystal clear, the mountains stood in dazzling white and resplendent green, the lake was a great sparkling sapphire studded with gold and diamonds.
Honor, sitting near the stern, watched the swirling wake, stretching far behind, saw the rainbow bubbles rise, dance, break, fall away in silver showers. She was fascinated, could not even look up at her beloved mountains.
Tiens! whispered Stephanie. This tall stranger, very distinguished, who regards us, Moriole!
Honor shook her shoulders a little impatiently. Stephanie was always seeing distinguished strangers; they seldom, if ever, were distinguished in Honors eyes.
Suppose, she thought, an Arm should suddenly appear, rising from the bosom of the lake,