“Oh, do you?” Jessie looked at her half incredulously. “I didn’t know any little girls could do that unless they were real French children who couldn’t speak English. How does it happen?”
“My grandmother was French. I am named after her,” Adele told her, “and my mother spoke French as well as English. I always had a French nurse, too, so I learned French at the same time I did English.”
Jessie looked at her admiringly, then she sighed. “Well, I don’t know a word of French or anything except ‘Guten Tag.’ We had a German to work for us once and he taught me that much.”
“Don’t let’s talk about such stupid things,” said Adele suddenly. “What is behind those branches piled up against that place in the bank here?”
Jessie looked at her quickly. It seemed as if Adele’s quick eyes and ears would discover all her secrets. “You won’t tell?” she asked after a minute’s pause. “Cross your heart you won’t? It’s a secret, you see. Playmate Polly is a secret, too. Not even mother or Minerva know about her.”
“I promise,” said Adele readily. “Who is Minerva?”
“Our girl. She is as nice as she can be. I’m awfully fond of her.”
“Show me what is behind the branches.”
Jessie led the way to the spot where the bank dropped three or four feet. She carefully removed the branches, saying mysteriously: “It is a cave, a grotto.”
Adele knelt down and peeped in to see where the bank, shelving in, made quite a little hollow. The floor of the small grotto was paved with pebbles upon which lay rugs of green moss. A piece of looking-glass set in the earth served for a tiny lake. The sides of the grotto were hung with another kind of moss. At one end two small candlesticks, bearing red candles, were set up and in a chair between them was the little china doll.