“But we are not all allowed at the masked ball. That is more for the older people. Oh, I hope next year I shall be a queen!”
So they chatted in their gay youth. André fastened Renée’s fur cloak and drew the hood over her face. Had she ever looked so sweet and bewildering before? Monsieur Laflamme wished her good-night and happy dreams, then bending low, whispered:
“But they must be of me. I shall dream of you.”
She colored vividly.
The quiet streets were filled with echoes of talk. Two or three dropped out here, a few more there. Renée and André called out good-night and turned in their square.
Gaspard Denys was smoking his pipe before the cheerful blazing fire, a picture of comfort.
“Oh, you lazy uncle!” Renée cried, but her voice had gayety, and not disappointment in it. “You did not come to see me as the queen. And I may never be that again.”
“A queen! And whose queen, pray?”
“M. Laflamme chose me. And M. Rivé was one of the kings. I don’t know why, but I believe I like him better. And he looked especially well to-night. Why didn’t you come?” with an enchanting pout of her rosy lips.
“I had a long list of accounts to go over. And then, pretty one, you had André to bring you home. Besides, I am growing old and, like Mère Lunde, love the chimney corner.”