"Ah! then, will you do me the kindness to play some accompaniments? That is one of the few things my good Jeannette cannot do for me," and almost before Barbara realised it she was sitting on a high-backed chair before the piano in the little salon, while Mademoiselle Viré sought eagerly for her music.
The room was so small that, with Mademoiselle Thérèse and the maid Jeannette—who seemed to be expected to follow her mistress—there seemed hardly room to move in it, and Barbara was all the more nervous by the nearness of her audience.
It certainly was rather anxious work, for though the little lady was charmingly courteous, she would not allow a passage played wrongly to go without correction. "I think we were not quite together there—were we?" she would say. "May we play it through again?" and Barbara would blush up to her hair, for she knew the violinist had played her part perfectly. She enjoyed it, though, in spite of her nervousness, and was sorry when it was time to go.
"You will come again, I hope?" her hostess asked. "You have given me a happy time." Then turning eagerly to Jeannette, she added, "Did I play well to-day, Jeannette?"
The quaint old maid rose at once from her seat at the door, and came across the room to put her mistress's cap straight.
"Madame played better than I have ever heard her," she replied.
Barbara had been so pleased with everything that she went again a few days later by herself, and this time was led into the garden, which, like the house, was very small, but full of roses and other sweet-smelling things. Madame—for Barbara noticed that most people seemed to call her so—was busy watering her flowers, and had on big gloves and an apron. When she saw the girl coming, she came forward to welcome her, saying, with a deprecatory movement towards her apron—
"But this apron!—These gloves! Had I known it was you, mademoiselle, I should have changed them and made myself seemly. Why did you not warn me, Jeannette?"
"Madame should not work in the garden and heat herself," the old woman said doggedly; "she should let me do that."
But madame laughed gaily.