Barbara in Brittany

by E. A. Gillie

Miss Britton fixed the day of departure as soon as Barbara was ready for the journey, proposing to go home in easy stages by Rouen and Dieppe, so that they might see the churches of which Mr. Morton had talked so much. The uncle and nephew had just come from that town, and were now returning to Paris, and thence, Denys thought, to England.

Mademoiselle Thérèse was "desolated" to hear that Barbara's visit was really drawing to a close, and assured her aunt that a few more months would make Barbara a "perfect speaker; for I have never known one of your nation of such talent in our language," she declared.

"Of course that isn't true," Miss Britton said coolly to Barbara afterwards, "though I think you have been diligent, and both Mademoiselle Viré and the queer little man next door say you speak fairly well."

The "queer little man next door" asked them both in to supper before they went, to show Miss Britton, he said, what a Frenchman could do in the cooking line. Barbara had some little difficulty in persuading her aunt to go, though she relented at last, and the experience was certainly very funny, though pathetic enough too. He and his sons could talk very little English, and again Barbara had to play interpreter, or correct the mistakes they made in English, which was equally difficult.

They had decorated the table gaily, and the father and son both looked so hot, that Barbara was sure they had spent a long time over the cooking. The first item was a soup which the widower had often spoken of as being made better by himself than by many a chef, and consisted of what seemed to Barbara a kind of beef-tea with pieces of bread floating in it. But on this occasion the bread seemed to have swelled to tremendous proportions, and absorbed the soup so that there was hardly anything but what seemed damp, swollen rolls! Aunt Anne, Barbara declared afterwards, was magnificent, and plodded her way through bread sponges flavoured with soup, assuring the distressed cook that it was really quite remarkable "potage," and that she had never tasted anything like it before—all of which, of course, was perfectly true.

The chicken, which came next, was cooked very well, only it had been stuffed with sage and onions, and Monsieur said, with pride, that they had thought it would be nice to give Mademoiselle Britton and her niece one English dish, in case they did not like the other things! It was during this course that Barbara's gravity was a little tried, not so much because of the idea of chicken with sage and onions, as because of the stolidity of her aunt's expression—the girl knowing that if there was one thing that lady was particular about, it was the correct cooking of poultry.

There were various other items on the menu, and it was so evident that their host and his eldest son had taken a great deal of trouble over the preparation of the meal, that the visitors were really touched, and did their best to show their appreciation of the attentions paid them. In that they were successful, and when they left the house the widower and his sons were wreathed in smiles. But when they had got to a safe distance Aunt Anne exclaimed, "What a silly man not to keep a servant!"

"Oh, but aunt," Barbara explained, "he thinks he could not manage a servant, and he is really most devoted to his children."

"It's all nonsense about the servant," Miss Britton retorted. "How can a man keep house?"

Nevertheless, when Mademoiselle Loiré began to question her rather curiously as to the dinner, she said they had been entertained very nicely, and that monsieur must be an extremely clever man to manage things so well.