"Are you very fond of plants?" enquired Charlotte. "Then I will take you to two or three of papa's weavers----"
She stopped short, and bit her lip, and Lucy frowned at her. Mademoiselle asked with a smile,
"What of the weavers? Will they show me flowers?"
Charlotte answered constrainedly that the operatives of Spitalfields were very fond of their little gardens, and succeeded in raising beautiful tulips and auriculas.
"O, let us go! It cannot be far, and it is a very fine evening," said the eager little lady, looking up to the yellow sunshine which streamed in from between two opposite chimneys. Charlotte and Lucy glanced at each other, and neither offered to move.
"Why, my children, is it possible?" cried Mademoiselle, putting a hand on the shoulder of each, and looking them full in the face with a smile. "You are afraid, I see, to introduce me to your father's weavers. You are afraid to tell nurse that you have done so, because poor nurse is jealous of the French gentleman, and his little French sister. Is it not so?"
The girls seemed about to cry. Mademoiselle went on,
"You shall request your father to introduce me to a florist or two. Meantime, we will ask my brother whether there are such among those whom he employs. My girls, we are of one country now,--you and I. Why should there be any tormenting, unworthy jealousy? Tell me why."
Charlotte only knew that some people thought,--some people feared,--it seemed so very natural that manufacturers should get the best weavers from one another.
"So very natural!" exclaimed Mademoiselle. "I tell you, my girl, that my brother has it not in his nature to feel jealousy of a neighbour; and I tell you also that my brother will in time give good weavers to your father and to all of the same occupation in this neighbourhood. If the suspicion you speak of were natural, it would be for my brother to feel it; yet, I will take you among his men without fear, if we find that they have tulips and auriculas."