"Yes, oh, yes, it is; but this is something I have been wanting for a long time, and now I feel it is the right time for it. Dear Mademoiselle Viré, will you come for a drive with me?"
A delicate flush coloured the old lady's cheeks, and Barbara watched her anxiously. She knew she was very poor, and could not afford to do such things for herself, and she was too frail to walk beyond the garden, but she also greatly feared that she might have made the offer in a way to hurt her friend's feelings.
The little lady did not answer for some time, then she looked into the eager face before her and smiled.
"If I said I would go, where could you get a carriage to take us?"
"Oh, I have found out all about that," the girl replied joyfully. "I shall not ask you to go in a donkey-cart, nor yet in a fiacre. I have found out quite a nice low chaise and a quiet pony that can be hired, and I will drive you myself."
It took only a little consideration after that, and then mademoiselle gave her consent to go next day if it were fine.
"If Jeannette would care to come," Barbara said, before leaving; and the old woman, who had been sitting very quietly in her corner while the arrangements were being made, looked at her mistress with a beaming face, and read her pleasure in the plan before she spoke.
"I am so glad you thought of her," Mademoiselle Viré whispered as she said good-bye to her visitor, "for though, of course, I should never have asked you to include her, yet she has been so patient and faithful in going through sorrows and labour with me, that it is but fair she should share my pleasures, and I should have felt grieved to leave her at home on such a day."
Barbara had one more invitation to give, which went rather against the grain, and that was to Mademoiselle Thérèse, whom she felt she could not leave out; but she was unfeignedly glad when the lady refused on the score of too much English correspondence.
The following day being gloriously fine, they started for the drive in great contentment, going by Mademoiselle Viré's choice towards La Guimorais, a little village some seven kilometres away on the coast. The pony was tractable and well behaved, and they rolled along slowly under the shady trees and past the old farms and cottages, Mademoiselle Viré's face alone, Barbara thought, being worth watching, while Jeannette sat opposite, her hands folded in her lap.