After talking for some time, Barbara had her first lesson in écarté, which she welcomed gladly, as helping to keep her awake. Then the whole family escorted their visitors to the station, where they stood in a row and waved hats and hands for a long time after the train had left. It was getting rather late when they reached the little inn once more, and Barbara was thankful that she had the excuse of a substantial dinner to fall back upon when she was offered more of the landlady's "pleasant beverage."
When the good-byes had been said it was growing dark, and the girl, thinking of their last adventurous drive, wondered if Mademoiselle Loiré was any more reliable. However, after the first mile, she cast dignity aside, and begged to be allowed to sit down in the hay at the back of the cart and go to sleep, either the eel or her efforts to make herself agreeable having created an overpowering desire for slumber, and she was still dreaming peacefully when they drove into St. Servan, and rattled up the narrow street to their own door.
CHAPTER XV.
THE STRIKE.
It was now the beginning of August, and just "grilling," as Donald would have expressed it.
It seemed almost as difficult to Barbara to leave the sea as it is to get out of bed on a winter morning.
"It must be so very nice to be a mermaid—in summer," she said, looking back at the water, as she and Marie went up the beach one morning.
"Yes," returned Marie, "If they had short hair. It must take such a lot of combing."
Marie was not so enthusiastic about bathing as her companion. Perhaps her want of enthusiasm was due to the fact that she was not allowed to bathe every day, because "it took up so much time that might be devoted to her studies." At first Mademoiselle Thérèse had tried to persuade Barbara that it would be much better for her to go only once or twice a week too.