"Your Papa has not seen it yet, then?" inquired Mme. de Chaulnes, having listened to the whole narrative of its purchase.
"No," replied Anne-Hilarion. "It is to be a surprise for him when he comes back." He pulled himself suddenly higher in the chair, which was a trifle slippery. "Did you know my Papa when he was little, like me, Madame? Grandpapa said so."
Mme. de Chaulnes laid down her knitting. "Cher petit, yes. I saw your Papa first when he was about your age, playing in the garden of the château in France where you were afterwards born, Anne. He was playing with a ball near a stone basin full of water, and—is not this curious?—there were goldfish like yours swimming about in the water. I remember it after all these years." And Mme. de Chaulnes' keen old eyes grew dreamy.
"Sister," said Mlle. Angèle, "tell the child how René was lost."
"Ah yes," said Mme. de Chaulnes. "Only I hope Anne will never imitate such conduct. Your father, as he grew older, Anne, was very fond of reading. One day his father—your grandfather, Anne, your French grandfather, that is—had given him a new book (I forget what it was), and your father was so delighted with it that he wandered off and took it to read in an old quarry. You know what that is, Anne—a place where they get stone from. So René—your father—scrambled down into this quarry, and sat there to read, and he was so much interested in the book that he forgot about dinner. And at the château they were very anxious because they did not know where he had got to, and the afternoon went on and still he did not come, and then at last they sent out to look for him. And how do you think they found him, Anne?"
But Anne could not guess.
"They took a big dog that belonged to the Marquis, your grandfather, and gave him a coat of your father's to smell, and told him to find your father. So the big dog trotted off, smelling the ground all the way, and at last he led them to the stone quarry, and there was René at the bottom of it. He could not climb up again!"
"He must have been frightened, Papa," said Anne reflectively. "I could not have read so long as that. When the words have many letters it is tiring, especially if the book is English. Do you speak English, Mesdames?" For all their converse hitherto had naturally been conducted in French, and Anne had forgotten that Elspeth had been addressed in her native tongue.
"A little," said Mme. de Chaulnes, smiling. "But you, child, speak it as easily as French, no doubt."
"I speak English to Grandpapa, and French to Papa," replied the linguist. "Did my Papa have a pony when he was little?" he next inquired.