The days in Paris flew past far too quickly for Barbara, who enjoyed everything to the full.
As she came to know her aunt better, and got accustomed to her dry manner and rather exact ways, she found her to be a really good companion, not altogether lacking in humour, and having untiring energy in sight-seeing and a keen sympathy with Barbara's delight in what was new.
Perhaps Miss Britton, too, was gaining more pleasure from the trip than she had expected, for up till now she had seen her niece only as one a little sobered by responsibility and the constraint of her own presence. Whatever the cause, it was certain that during the past fortnight Miss Britton had felt the days of her youth nearer her than for some time, and it was with mutual regret that they reached the last day of their stay in Paris.
They were sitting together on the balcony, with the bees very busy in the lilac-bush near them, and the doves murmuring to each other at the end of the garden. Barbara was reading a guide-book on Brittany, and Miss Britton, with her knitting in her hands, was listening to bits the girl read aloud, and watching a little frown grow between the eyebrows. It was curious how the frown between the dark brows reminded her of her dead brother; and after a moment she laid down her knitting.
"Barbara was reading a guide book on Brittany."
"You may think it a little unkind, Barbara," she began, "that I am not coming with you to see what kind of place it is to which you are going, but I think it is good for a girl to learn to be independent and self-reliant. I made careful inquiries, and the people seem to be very good at teaching French—they used to live in Paris—and they are quite respectable. Of course, you may not find everything just as you like it, and if it is really unpleasant, you can write me, and I shall arrange for you to return here. But Paris would be more distracting for you to live in, and in a week or two far too hot to be pleasant.
"Besides, I should like you really to study the language, so that you may profit by your stay in France, as well as enjoy it. If I stayed with you you would never talk French all the time." She stopped a moment, and took a stitch or two in her knitting, then added in a tone quite different from her usual quick, precise way, "Your father was a splendidly straight, strong man—in body and mind. Try to be like him in every way. He would have wished his eldest daughter to be sensible and courageous."
Barbara flushed with pleasure at the praise of her father. She had never heard her aunt mention him before, and she leaned forward eagerly, "Thank you, Aunt Anne—I want to be like him."