“Chut! chut!” answered Lizzette, bending down to kiss him. “C’est passé, mon garçon. Now we will be gay like ze birds, and happy ze livelong day.”
Margaret had slipped away during the little colloquy between Lizzette and Antoine, and presently returned with a small bundle carefully tied up in an old bandana handkerchief. Untying the knot, she spread its contents open to view.
“Mon Dieu! mon Dieu!” cried the voluble Frenchwoman, clutching the handkerchief and falling in a paroxysm of weeping at Margaret’s feet. “Ze cushion I made for him; ze hair comb; ze neccessaire—I know all, all. Mon pauvre Jacques! And you, Miss Margaret, ze angel, ze comforter of his last hours? Plut à Dieu! cet I too might have been wiz him. Ze violin, celui de votre père, Antoine. Le bon Dieu! Zese friends, ze violin, ze kind care de mon pauvre Jacques, votre père—ah! my heart ees bursting wiv ze—ze—gratefulness. I weep my eyes away,” and the affectionate creature clung to Margaret’s skirts in a bewilderment of grief, wonder, and joy.
“It seems like a miracle,” said Margaret, stooping to raise Lizzette from the ground. “But it only shows how small the world is and how interdependent we are. We shall be still warmer friends after this.”
Antoine, a mute but agitated witness of the scene, reached out a hand to Elsie, who had stolen quietly beside his chair.
“How strange, how dear, how beautiful it all is!” he exclaimed.
CHAPTER VI.
That evening, gathered in the little sitting-room at Idlewild, were the five people who made up the Home Circle Club which Margaret had organized, and who, Elsie laughingly said, “represented the bone and sinew of the ‘new aristocracy’ which was to revolutionize the world.”
“Only think,” she exclaimed before Margaret had gravely called the meeting to order. “Only think of the greatness concentrated here! In my grave sister I recognize the ‘Morning Star’ of the new reformation; a second Wickliffe with the mantle of peace and gentleness bravely wrapped about her slight form. In Gilbert another Sir Isaac Newton, who shall discover a new law of gravitation, which shall make the gold of the miser fall of its own volition into the outstretched hands of the philanthropist. In Antoine a later Corelli, who shall render all these aspirations into a new classic for the benefit of future generations; and in ma mère an Archestratus, who shall, in verifying Voltaire’s enthusiasm, ‘qu’un cuisinier est un mortel divin,’ solidify this band of enthusiasts with the material offering of something good to eat.”
“And you?” asked Margaret.