“Hush, Tite,” cried Pepsie, “you needn’t blame Miss Lady. It was my fault. I was wicked and selfish, I didn’t want her to go to Mam’selle Diane. I was jealous, that’s all.”
“Pepsie cried because she thought I wouldn’t love her,” put in Lady Jane, in an explanatory tone, quite ignoring Tite’s burst of loyalty. “Mam’selle Diane is nobility—French nobility—and Pepsie thought I’d be proud, and love Mam’selle best,—didn’t you, Pepsie?”
“Now, jes’ hear dat chile,” cried Tite, scornfully. “If dey is nobil’ty, dey is po’ white trash. Shore’s I live, dat tall lean one wat look lak a graveyard figger, she git outen her bed ’fore sun-up, an’ brick her banquette her own se’f. I done seed her, one mornin’; she war a-scrubbin’ lak mad. An’ bress yer, honey, she done had a veil on; so no one won’t know her. Shore’s I live, she done brick her banquette wid a veil on.”
“If she cleans the banquette herself, they must be very poor,” was Pepsie’s logical conclusion. “Perhaps, after all, they’re not so proud; only they don’t want people to know how poor they are. And, Tite, don’t you tell that on the poor lady. You know it’s just one of your stories about her having a veil on. It may have been some one else. You couldn’t tell who it was, if she had a veil on, as you say.”
This argument did not in the least shake Tite Souris in her conviction that she had seen the granddaughter of the Count d’Hautreve bricking her banquette before “sun-up” with a veil over her face.
However, Lady Jane and Pepsie were reconciled, and the little cripple, to show her confidence in the child’s affection, was now as anxious to have her go to Mam’selle Diane and learn music, as she was averse to it before.
“Yes, Lady dear, I want you to learn to play on the piano, and I’ll tell you what I’ve been thinking of,” said Pepsie as they leaned confidentially toward each other across the table, “mama has some money in the bank. She’s been saving it to get something for me. You know, she does everything I want her to do. I wanted to learn to read, and she had a teacher come to me every day until I could read and write very well, so I’m sure she’ll do this, if I want her to; and this is what it is: She must buy a piano to put right there in that space next to bed.”
“For me to play on? Oh, Pepsie, how lovely!” and Lady Jane clasped her hands with delight.
“And you can practise all the time,” continued the practical Pepsie. “You know, if you ever learn music well you must practise a great deal. Cousin Marie practised three hours a day in the convent. And then, when you are grown up, you’ll sing in the cathedral, and earn a great deal of money; and you can buy a beautiful white satin dress, all trimmed down the front with lace, and they will ask you to sing in the French Opera, on Rue Bourbon; and every one will bring you flowers, and rings and bracelets, and jewels, and you’ll be just like a queen.”
“And sit on a throne, and wear a crown?” gasped Lady Jane, her eyes wide and sparkling, and her cheeks flushed over the glories of Pepsie’s riotous imagination.