Marguerite came past them and said that sufficient clover was cut. My aunts and I went to the foot of a tree, and when we were all seated side by side in the shade, I answered aunt Constance in the same tone she had taken:
“I am, indeed, a young lady like few others, and this is not the end of my being so. I promise you, auntie, that I do not mean to stop half-way.”
“What do you mean by that?” asked aunt Sophie.
“You can easily understand,” I answered, in a serious, grave, mysterious tone—for I felt that I must initiate my dear great-aunts in my secret thoughts, that they were worthy of my confidence, and that I could repeat to them what my grandmother was always saying to me—“you can easily understand that I am not going to live all my life at Chauny, that I shall go to Paris and become a woman unlike everyone else.”
“Are you going to be a celebrity, dear?” asked aunt Sophie.
“How long a time do you propose to take before you render your family illustrious?” asked aunt Constance.
“Forty years,” I replied.
Aunt Constance and aunt Anastasie burst out laughing at my answer.
Marguerite, leaning on her little cart, was listening, open-mouthed. “It is just possible that it may be,” she said.
“Well, Juliette, I promise you I will live to see it,” said aunt Sophie, solemnly and seriously.[B]