"Her first," the mother--the mother--repeated after him. "Maybe so; I don't care." They kissed. "Good night."
"Good night . . . good night . . . good night, dear, darling mother. Good night!"
XLVIII
At the batten door of her high, tight garden-fence Mlle. Yvonne, we repeat, let in Mme. De l'Isle and Mrs. Chester.
"Mother of--ah-h-h!" Her rapture was mated to such courteous restraint that dinginess and dishevelment were easily overlooked. "And 'ow marvellouz that is, that you 'appen to come juz' when he--and us--we're getting that news of the manu'----"
"What! accepted?"
"Oh, that we di'n' hear yet! We only hear he's hear' something, but we're sure tha'z the only something he can hear!" She had begun to close the gate, but Mrs. Chester lingered in it.
"That fine large house and garden across the way," she said, "are they a Creole type?"
"Yes, bez' kind--for in the city. They got very few like that in the vieux carré, but up yonder in that beautiful garden diztric' of the nouveau quartier are many, where we'll perchanze go to live some day pritty soon. That old 'ouse we're inhabiting here, tha'z--like us, ha, ha!--a pritty antique. Tha'z mo' suit' for a relique than to live in, especially for Tantine--ha, ha!--tha'z auntie, yet tha'z what we call our niece. Aline--juz' in plaisanterie!--biccause she take' so much mo' care of us than us of her."