There was one small person, however, whom our Madelon at once inspired with a quite unbounded admiration for her. A few evenings after her arrival, some one knocked at her bedroom door as she was dressing for dinner; she opened it, and there stood Madge in the passage, her hands full of red and white daisies.
"I have brought you some flowers, Cousin Madelon," said the child shyly.
"They are beautiful," said Madelon, taking them from her; "won't you come in? I will put some of them in my hair."
She sat down before the looking-glass, and began arranging them in her hair, whilst Madge stood and watched her with wide-open eyes.
"They are out of my own garden," she said presently.
"I might have guessed that, they are so pretty," said Madelon, turning round and smiling at her; it was in the girl's nature to make these little gracious speeches, which came to her more readily than ordinary words of thanks. "I like them very much," she went on; "they remind me of some that grew in the convent garden."
"Were you ever in a convent?" asked Madge, with a certain awe.
"Yes, for two years, when I was about as old as you are."
"And were there any nuns there?" asked Madge, whose ideas were not enlarged, and who looked upon a nun as the embodiment of much romance.
"To be sure," answered Madelon, rather amused; "they were all nuns, except some little girls who came every day to be taught by them."