“You are really very amiable to us,” replied my mother in a sharp tone. “If it was you who brought about this miracle, you can repeat it here,” said grandmother, who had no idea of losing her temper.
“Why, Juliette, how can you have such excessive, scandalous, dreadful, criminal audacity as to dare to imply that you have ever heard a single quarrel or witnessed a single dispute in your family either at Chauny or Blérancourt? In truth, you baby, your health is only skin deep; you are still suffering. Go to bed, my child, go to bed.”
You should have heard grandfather say all this in his shrill, lisping voice. He was perfectly serious and solemn, and irresistibly funny.
“I was wrong, I was wrong, a hundred times wrong, Sir Grandfather,” I answered, “I humbly beg pardon, I repeat. I collapse!”
I imitated grandfather’s tone so perfectly that even my mother smiled.
When my parents had left, grandmother instead of questioning me as I had expected, said kindly:
“Go and rest, darling, Arthémise will put you to bed, while we have our game of Imperiale. To-morrow, and the following days, you shall tell us all you have said, all you have done and seen.”
And so it was, for days and days I talked of nothing but Chivres. Grandmother was quite surprised that I should have so enjoyed myself in a place where she would have been bored to death.
During the last remaining month of my holidays I was much oftener in our large garden than in the drawing-room reading stories with grandmother.
A gardener was in the habit of coming three times a week, and, guided by Arthémise, he arranged the garden as he pleased. It was I now who looked after all the crops, and from that time he obeyed my orders. I had some autumn sowing done, and I began to read books telling about the culture of vegetables and the raising of fruit. The garden was admirably stocked with both. I chose one of the empty rooms for a fruit-store and had some shelves put up by the carpenter. Grandmother took no interest in these things; so she let me do as I chose with the gardener and Arthémise. During the whole of that winter we had ripe fruit on the table every day, and my grandparents were much pleased.