CHAPTER XXI
THE OLD CHATEAU
Lucile had been awake for some time. She lay with both hands beneath her curly head, staring straight up at the ceiling and thinking, thinking, very hard.
They were on the outskirts of Paris. Her father had heard from the Applegates of this wonderful little inn, where one might be as comfortable as in one’s own home. This had appealed strongly to them all, for the girls were eager for a sight of the country, especially since the gratifying of their desire would not entail the loss of city delights in the least—a machine could whirl them into the heart of Paris in half an hour.
Such was the pleasant trend of Lucile’s thoughts as she turned her eyes toward the bright patch of window and beheld a world bathed in golden sunshine. “How pretty it all was!” she mused. “Take the clouds, for instance. How feathery and soft and fleecy and silvery-lined they looked, floating on that vast sea of brilliant turquoise; and somewhere, somewhere there was a bird singing, more exquisitely, she was sure, than bird had ever sung before. Oh, if she could only get one little peek at him!” With this in view, she stole silently from the bed and over to the window.
“Time to get up?” yawned a sleepy voice from the bed.
“Oh, he’s stopped!” wailed Lucile. “He stopped the minute you began to talk. Oh, Jessie, why did you have to wake up just then?”
Jessie gazed at her friend as at one gone suddenly and violently insane. “If it will do you any good, I will go to sleep again,” said she, with much dignity. “But I should like to know what or whom it was I stopped and—” 147
“Oh, hush!” begged Lucile, with her finger on her lips. “There he is now; listen, please!”
And Jessie listened while the little songster poured out his joy in liquid cadences that rose and fell and sparkled out upon the morning air like dancing sunbeams turned to music—so light, so rippling, so joyously alive, that the girls’ hearts thrilled in answer.