“And it’s just as ordinary and commonplace as if it were in New York,” Babbie had told the girls sadly, with a newly awakened perception that her traveling had hitherto been of a very commonplace variety. But Mrs. Hildreth only asked what were the especial merits of Madeline’s pension.
“She won’t tell,” explained Babbie, looking beseechingly at Madeline, who only returned a serene smile. “She just says it’s queer and quaint and the kind of thing we all like, and that we can see what it’s like, if we go there.”
“But if we don’t go there, you simply must describe it, Madeline,” said Betty so solemnly that Mrs. Hildreth laughed and declared they would patronize Madeline’s pension.
Finally, after a long day’s ride in the Paris express and a drive across the city in the queer taximeter cabs—where you sit and watch the distance and the francs for the fare, pile up in the indicator and forget, in the absorbing interest of this occupation, to look around you at the sights of the strange city—the driver of the first cab stopped before a blank wall in a narrow, rather dirty street. Upon being admonished by Babbie that he was wrong he pointed inexorably at the number on the wall, and even Babe, most ardent admirer of Madeline’s theories, gave a gasp of dismay. The two girls were with Mrs. Hildreth, while Betty and Madeline were behind, and Marie was in a third carriage with most of the baggage.
“Careful, Babe,” Mrs. Hildreth whispered. “We don’t want to hurt Madeline’s feelings—nor Mademoiselle’s.” For Madeline had written ahead for rooms, and when the porter opened the door in the high and dingy wall, a pretty Frenchwoman was running across the graveled courtyard inside, eager to greet her guests.
“We’ll stay here to-night,” Mrs. Hildreth decided hastily, “and then in the morning I can easily make an excuse to change.”
Mademoiselle was certainly charming, if her front door—or front gate—was not. Smiling and chatting, she led the way across the court to the old stone mansion and helped her two little maids show the party up-stairs and settle each one’s baggage in the room she chose. Madeline, Babe and Betty had single rooms, all looking out on still another court. This one was shut in on three sides by ivy-covered stone walls, and shaded by a great magnolia tree; and enticing little green tables, like those in the cafés at Saint Malo, stood about here and there. The rooms themselves were long and narrow—just like cells, Babe declared with a shiver—and as soon as she was dressed she went down into the courtyard to wait for dinner. When the girls found her she was sitting on the gravel scratching the back of a big turtle, which, she joyously informed her friends, was attraction number one of Madeline’s pension.
“Its name is Virginia—no, that’s not right. What’s the French of Virginia? Virginie, then. And it knows its name, only it won’t answer unless it knows you. At least, that’s what I understood Mademoiselle to say. I’m scratching its back so beautifully that it ought to follow me around like a dog hereafter.”
Attraction number two was a very good dinner, and attraction number three was going to bed by candle-light, which made the tiny rooms seem more like cells than ever. But Betty suggested that they were more like nuns’ cells than prisoners’, and Babe said she liked the idea of being a nun—it was very much like being a man-hater when you came to think of it.
Attraction number four was the best of all; it was having breakfast in the garden. Mademoiselle had explained that they could have “petite dejeuner,” which means coffee or chocolate and crusty rolls, whenever they liked, and they had all agreed to be ready at half-past eight—which is really very early indeed in Europe—so as to have a long day for sightseeing. Betty got down first and was going into the dining-room to wait for the others, when a servant asked her to sit in the garden instead, and before she knew what was happening, her breakfast appeared on a tray. Just then Babe pulled back her curtains and stuck her head out of the window to see how the garden looked so early; and giving a shriek of delight, she rushed down to eat, too. Mrs. Hildreth hadn’t been much impressed by Virginie or the candles, but she was as delighted as the girls with breakfast under the magnolia tree, and she readily agreed to wait a little before deserting Madeline’s pension.