"Who are those people?" said the Comtesse, putting up her eyeglass.
"It is my brother Joseph and his little daughter," Urbain answered. "He has his gun, I see, as usual. I suppose he was shooting in this direction."
"Does he take the child out shooting with him? He is certainly very eccentric."
Urbain shrugged his shoulders. "Poor dear Joseph! A little, perhaps. Yes, he is unlike other people. To tell you the truth, I am only too glad when his odd fancies spend themselves on the management of Henriette."
"Or mis-management! He will ruin the child. He brought her here the other day, and she appeared to me quite savage."
"Really, madame! Poor Henriette! She is a sociable child and clever, too. My wife and Angelot are very fond of her. I think she must have been shy in your presence."
"Oh, not at all. She talked to Hervé like a grown-up woman. I was amused. When I say 'savage,' I mean that she had evidently been in no society, and had not the faintest idea how a young person of her age is expected to behave. She was far more at her ease than Hélène, for instance."
"Ah, dear madame! there is something pleasing, is there not, in such a frank trust in human nature! The child is very like her father."
"Those manners may be pretty in a child of six," said Madame de Sainfoy, "but they are quite out of place in a girl of her age—how old is she?"
"I don't exactly know. Twelve or thirteen, I think."