Mary thought for a moment or two.
"But oughtn't I to honor Mr. and Mrs. Fawcus, who Grandmamma says I mustn't call Uncle William and Aunt Lucy any more?"
It was Mademoiselle's turn to think for a moment.
"You ought to honor their memory," she said at last.
"But why mayn't I write to them and tell them where I am? And tell about you, Mademoiselle, and what I'm doing and about the garden and the lizards and the white cows who pull the carts and about treading on the grapes and beating the corn with those funny sticks and about my sabots and the melon I have for breakfast? They would like to hear."
Mademoiselle could not bear that the gratitude and affection of a little child should be thus discouraged, although Lady Flower's last words had been to forbid any communication between Mary and her former guardians. In the end she compromised by letting Mary write a letter and writing herself by the same post to Mr. Fawcus, begging him not to reply and explaining the circumstances in which she had allowed Mary to write. It was unlike Mademoiselle to compromise; but she was tormented by the woes of France that autumn and not so much mistress as usual of her judgment or emotions. Her kindly intention did much harm, for when Mary received no answer to her letter she was embittered by the thought that her beloved friends had already forgotten her, and this was the first disillusion of her life.
During this time Mary, with the facility of childhood, learned to speak French, so that before the leaves fell from the trees that year she was as fluent as if she had been living in Châteaublanc from infancy. One day in October—it was soon after the news had arrived of Gambetta's escape from Paris in a balloon—Mary, wandering in a remote corner of the grounds, discovered a stripling of about sixteen who was digging holes for young trees to be planted in them when the autumn rains should have soaked down into the soil. He was a slim, handsome boy with fine features and dark, silky hair; but it was not his good looks that interested Mary so much as the fact that he seemed to be working in a frenzy of despair.
"Qu'est-ce que tu as?" she demanded.
"J'ai mal au cœur," he replied sullenly, wiping a tear from his eye and bending low over his spade.
"But why are you crying?" she persisted. She spoke in French, of course.