"That is indifferent. What would make me try him? Selim and I will never fight."
"Ai! various things happen," answered my father.
After dinner that day we were all sitting on the broad, vine-covered porch; from this porch the view was on the immense front yard and in the distance on the shady road bordered by linden-trees. Pani d'Yves was working an altar-cloth for the chapel; my father and the priest were smoking pipes and drinking black coffee. Kazio was circling about in front of the porch, following the turns of swift swallows, at which he wanted to shoot balls; but my father would not let him do that. Hania and I were looking at drawings which I had brought home, and were thinking least of all of the drawings; for me they served only to conceal from others the glances which I cast at Hania.
"Well, and how hast thou found Hania? Does she seem ugly to thee, lord guardian?" asked my father, looking facetiously at the girl.
I began to examine a drawing very carefully, and answered from behind the paper,—
"I will not say, father, that she has grown ugly, but she has grown tall, and has changed."
"Pan Henryk has reproached me already with these changes," put in Hania, with freedom.
I wondered at her daring in presence of my father. I could not have mentioned those reproaches so freely.
"Oh, what matters it whether she has grown old or grown pretty!" said Father Ludvik; "but she learns quickly and well. Let Madame tell how quickly she has learned French."
It should be known that the priest, though highly educated, did not know French and could not learn it, though he had spent a number of years under our roof with Pani d'Yves. The poor man, however, had a weakness for French, and considered a knowledge of it as an indispensable mark of superior education.