The children had fixed their eyes with interest and sympathy on Adrienne, but her attention was apparently concentrated on stroking old Griffin, who purred in the sunshine.
"I never shall forget that afternoon," she continued, "I was so very unhappy; and it wasn't only that afternoon; for months afterwards I couldn't bear to think of a fairy. But the reason I tell you about it," she added, raising her eyes and looking towards the children, "is because afterwards it went away. One of my uncles came to live with us, and he told me about the true fairies; I mean the angels; and I have believed in them ever since. And so you need not be disappointed because the fairies do not really dance where Winnie went to look, because the angels are better, and they are true. Some people don't think the angels are all round us everywhere as the fairies were, but I do. I think it is so beautiful to believe that they are everywhere, in everything; sent down from heaven to make the flowers sweet, and the fruit ripe, and to put good into us."
She looked out, as she finished speaking, to the sunny park, where the great trees stood in all their autumn glory. The children looked out too and were silent. Just for the moment they were all feeling, as it were, the presence of angels.
But suddenly Bobbo was struck by another idea. "Why, you're talking English!" he exclaimed. "But you know you're French! I'd forgotten all about it!" He seemed quite excited by his discovery, and Adrienne began to laugh.
"Oh, yes!" cried Winnie, "of course you are, and Murtagh and I had got some things ready to say. Hadn't we, Murtagh? 'Comment-vous portez-vous,' and 'Parlez-vous Anglais.'"
"I am very well, thank you," said Adrienne, with a little mock bow. "And I speak English just as easily as I do French. We lived for years in England, you know, and then I always had English governesses. Grand'mère knew, of course, that I was coming here, so she paid particular attention to my English."
"Oh!" said all the children in chorus; and then Rosie, coloring violently, asked a question which it had evidently been agreed beforehand that she should ask.
"What did you say your name was? Murtagh says it's Adrenne; but that isn't a name exactly at all, is it?"
"Yes," said Adrienne, smiling. "He is quite right; Adrienne Marie Véronique Erstein Blair!"
"Oh!" exclaimed Bobbo, doubling himself up as though the very sound gave him a pain. "Do you expect us to say all that every time we want the door shut?"