She was in a high, story-book bed, such a bed as might have accommodated the princess of a Grimm fairy-tale. With four high posts, heavy dark draperies sweeping the floor, and, actually, three little steps of a ladder to lead up to it. She leaned over and peered down at them, then gave a delighted bounce. She had been too sleepy the night before to notice those steps, but she did remember her host’s very French warning that the night air was dangerous and that she must keep her windows tight closed. But after Madame and Monsieur had departed she had crossed to the casements and opened them wide.
Now she pattered, barefooted, down the steps and leaned out over the low sill. The curious snores came from just below. Grunts, not snores! Oh, the darlings! Pigs, little ones, and all ten of them very vocal and very hungry and directly beneath her window.
“Well, I never thought I’d live over a pigpen,” laughed Cynthia. “Isn’t that France for you!”
At the end of the long room a dusty old mirror in a tall gold frame reflected the polished parquet floor with its dark oak inlay, the huge heavy furniture, built to last many lifetimes, the two high windows, and the Basque Pyrénées, towering, blue, beyond the green of rolling fields. In the center of it all Cynthia herself, like some new kind of a blue-and-white striped, pyjamaed, fairy-tale princess; dark hair a tangle of curls, blue eyes wide and amused, bare pink toes pattering over the shining floor.
“Well, you certainly are an anach ... anachronism ... or however you pronounce it when you mean you’re out of place!” she twinkled at the fairy in the mirror. “Wonder what time they breakfast here! Gosh, I’m hungry!”
She tiptoed to the door. It swung silently on well-oiled hinges. No footsteps sounded below but there was a murmur of soft voices, the smell of toast—she sniffed—and chocolate. Then from somewhere in the house a bird call sounded. Nine times.
A cuckoo clock. Nine cuckoos. My, but it was late! Hurry and get dressed, my dear. She scampered back to fling on her clothes. “Glory, what a day!”
She must have slept twelve hours solid. Goodness, how heavenly the pines smelled, how wonderful this peace and quiet after the hot asphalt, the ceaseless noise, the rattle and scream of Paris.
She ran a comb through her hair, gave a dab of powder to her nose and opened the door again. The wide shallow stairs led directly into the sun-drenched kitchen.
Madame, looking up, beamed good morning from her work over the stove. “Bon jour, bon jour,” and seemed very proud of even that much French. Her own language was Basque, of course.