With touching docility, and without the least hesitation, she gathered up Tony, who was standing on one leg under her chair, and, holding up her face for Pepsie to kiss, she said good-by.
“And you’ll come again in the morning,” cried Pepsie, hugging her fondly; “you’ll be sure to come in the morning.”
And Lady Jane said yes.
CHAPTER X
LADY JANE FINDS OTHER FRIENDS
Thus Lady Jane’s new life, in the quaint old Rue des Bons Enfants, began under quite pleasant auspices. From the moment that Pepsie, with a silent but not unrecorded vow, constituted herself the champion and guardian angel of the lonely little stranger, she was surrounded by friends, and hedged in with the most loyal affection.
Because Pepsie loved the child, the good Madelon loved her also, and although she saw her but seldom, being obliged to leave home early and return late, she usually left her some substantial token of good will, in the shape of cakes or pralines, or some odd little toy that she picked up on Bourbon Street on her way to and from her stand.
Madelon was a pleasant-faced, handsome woman, always clean and always cheery; no matter how hard the day had been for her, whether hot or cold, rainy or dusty, she returned home at night as fresh and cheerful as when she went out in the morning. Pepsie adored her mother, and no two human beings were ever happier than they when the day’s work was over, and they sat down together to their little supper.
Then Pepsie recounted to her mother everything that had happened during the day, or at least everything that had come within her line of vision as she sat at her window; and Madelon in turn would tell her of all she had heard out in her world, the world of the Rue Bourbon, and after the advent of Lady Jane the child was a constant theme of conversation between them. Her beauty, her intelligence, her pretty manners, her charming little ways were a continual wonder to the homely woman and girl, who had seen little beyond their own sphere of life.
If Madelon was fortunate enough to get home early, she always found Lady Jane with Pepsie, and the loving way with which the child would spring to meet her, clinging to her neck and nestling to her broad motherly bosom, showed how deeply she needed the maternal affection so freely lavished upon her.
At first Madame Jozain affected to be a little averse to such a close intimacy, and even went so far as to say to Madame Fernandez, the tobacconist’s wife, who sat all day with her husband in his little shop rolling cigarettes and selling lottery tickets, that she did not like her niece to be much with the lame girl opposite, whose mother was called “Bonne Praline.” Perhaps they were honest people, and would do the child no harm; but a woman who was never called madame, and who sat all day on the Rue Bourbon, was likely to have the manners of the streets. And Lady Jane had never been thrown with such people; she had been raised very carefully, and she didn’t want her to lose her pretty manners.