"How sorry I should have been if I hadn't have come," said Rosalie, speaking with her mouth full; "it is so pretty and so good."
"Why shouldn't you have come?"
"Because they wanted to send me to Picquigny for Mr. Bendit; he is ill."
"What's the matter with him?"
"He's got typhoid fever. He's very ill. Since yesterday he hasn't known what he's been talking about, and he doesn't know anybody. And I had an idea about you...."
"Me! What about me?"
"Something you can do...."
"If there is anything I can do for Mr. Bendit I'd be only too willing. He was kind to me; but I'm only a poor girl; I don't understand."
"Give me a little more fish and some more watercress, and I'll explain," said Rosalie. "You know that Mr. Bendit has charge of the foreign correspondence; he translates the English and German letters. Naturally, as he is off his head now, he can't translate. They wanted to get somebody else to replace him, but as this other man might take his place after he is better (that is, if he does get better), M. Fabry and M. Mombleux have taken charge of the work, so that he will be sure to have his job when he's up again. But now M. Fabry has been sent away to Scotland and M. Mombleux is in a fix, because, although he can read German all right, he's not much on English. If the writing isn't very clear he can't make out the letters at all. I heard him saying so at the table when I was waiting on them. So I thought I'd tell him that you can speak English just as good as you can French."
"I spoke French with my father, and English with my mother," said Perrine, "and when we were all three talking together we spoke sometimes one, sometimes the other, mixing two languages without paying attention."