All but Sarah and Amanda—who were not taking French—groaned. It was Wednesday,—French day,—and it would make the third time running that Mademoiselle had had to be absent. It would also mean Monsieur Hugo again.
“It’s very provoking, how the wrong persons will go and get sick,” Debby sighed. “No one would have minded Monsieur Hugo getting the grip!”
“As if he could ever really substitute for Mademoiselle Lamotte,” Susy protested—the class adored Mademoiselle. “We haven’t had a decent recitation with him yet.”
“It’s all his fault!” Debby insisted; “he’s so cross and so—polite. I mean it,” she added, as the rest laughed, “I don’t know whether to call it crossly polite, or politely cross. One could stand either of them alone—but together!”
“My prophetic soul warns me that there are breakers ahead!” Kitty said.
And that afternoon, catching sight of Monsieur through the half-open door, she leaned forward to whisper to Blue Bonnet, who sat just in front, “I’ve discovered what he’s like—he looks as though he had been brought up on his own irregular verbs and they hadn’t agreed with him.”
“Wouldn’t you have wanted them to?” Blue Bonnet laughed back.
“Katherine! Elizabeth!” Miss Fellows said, adding that the French class were to go to their recitation-room at once.
“She should have said—the class in French,” Debby commented, slipping into place behind Blue Bonnet and Kitty, “Poor Monsieur, I’m rather sorry for him.”
“I’m letting pity begin at home!” Kitty returned, as the three retired modestly to the back row, leaving the front seats for Hester Manly and what Kitty called, “the other stars.”