‘Mon enfant! thou hast a thought deep in here!’ she said to Mary, one day, as they sat together in the grass under the apple-trees.
‘Why, what?’ said Mary, with a startled and guilty look.
‘Why, what? petite!’ said the fairy princess, whimsically mimicking her accent. ‘Ah! ah! ma belle! you think I have no eyes;—Virginie sees deep in here!’ she said, laying her hand playfully on Mary’s heart. ‘Ah, petite!’ she said, gravely, and almost sorrowfully, ‘if you love him, wait for him,—don’t marry another! It is dreadful not to have one’s heart go with one’s duty.’
‘I shall never marry anybody,’ said Mary.
‘Nevare marrie anybodie!’ said the lady, imitating her accents in tones much like those of a bobolink. ‘Ah! ah! my little saint, you cannot always live on nothing but the prayers, though prayers are verie good. But, ma chère,’ she added, in a low tone, ‘don’t you ever marry that good man in there; priests should not marry.’
‘Ours are not priests,—they are ministers,’ said Mary. ‘But why do you speak of him?—he is like my father.’
‘Virginie sees something!’ said the lady, shaking her head gravely; ‘she sees he loves little Mary.’
‘Of course he does!’
‘Of-course-he-does?—ah, yes; and by-and-by comes the mamma, and she takes this little hand, and she says, “Come, Mary!” and then she gives it to him; and then the poor jeune homme, when he comes back, finds not a bird in his poor little nest. Oh, c’est ennuyeux cela!’ she said, throwing herself back in the grass till the clover heads and buttercups closed over her.
‘I do assure you, dear Madame!’—