“I call it low—positively vulgar,” said Miss Leyton, “to behave so familiarly with people one has never seen before—of whose antecedents one knows nothing! I should be very much surprised if the mob behaved in such a manner towards me. Oh!”
The exclamation was induced by the action of some young épicier, or hotel garçon, who threw a mass of confetti into her face with such violence as almost for the moment to blind her.
“Ha! ha! ha!” roared Ralph Pullen with his healthy British lungs, as he saw her outraged feelings depicted in her countenance.
“I thought you’d get it before long!” he said, as she attempted to brush the offending paper off her mantle.
“It has not altered my opinion of the indecency of the custom!” she replied.
“Never mind!” he returned soothingly. “Here come the charrettes.”
They were really a charming sight. On one cart was drawn a boat, with little children dressed as fishermen and fisherwomen—another represented a harvest-field, with the tiny haymakers and reapers—whilst a third was piled with wool to represent snow, on the top of which were seated three little girls attired as Esquimaux. The mail-carts, and perambulators belonging to the visitors to Heyst were also well represented, and beautifully trimmed with flowers. The first prize was embowered in lilies and white roses, whilst its tiny inmate was seated in state as the Goddess Flora, with a wreath twined in her golden curls. The second was taken by a gallant Neapolitan fisherman of about four years old, who wheeled a mail cart of pink roses, in which sat his little sisters, dressed as angels with large white wings. The third was a wheel-barrow hidden in moss and narcissi, on which reposed a Sleeping Beauty robed in white tissue, with a coronal of forget-me-nots.
Harriet Brandt fell into ecstasies over everything she saw. When pleased and surprised, she expressed herself more like a child than a young woman, and became extravagant and ungovernable. She tried to kiss each baby that took part in the procession, and thrust coins into their chubby hands to buy bonbons and confetti with. Captain Pullen thought her conduct most natural and unaffected; but Miss Leyton insisted that it was all put on for effect. Olga Brimont tried to put in a good word for her friend.
“Harriet is very fond of children,” she said, “but she has never seen any—there were no children at the Convent under ten years of age, so she does not know how to make enough of them when she meets them. She wants to kiss every one. Sometimes, I tell her, I think she would like to eat them. But she only means to be kind!”
“I am sure of that!” said Captain Pullen.