But had they not something far more beautiful and precious than cotton and corn? Marie Louise thought with delight of that row of Easter lilies on their tall green stems, ranged thick along the sunny side of the house.
The assurance that she would, after all, be able to satisfy Mr. Billy’s just anger, was a very sweet one. And soothed by it, Marie Louise soon fell asleep and dreamt a grotesque dream: that the lilies were having a stately dance on the green in the moonlight, and were inviting Mr. Billy to join them.
The following day, when it was nearing noon, Marie Louise said to her mamma: “Maman, can I have some of the Easter lily, to do with like I want?”
Madame Angèle was just then testing the heat of an iron with which to press out the seams in the young lady’s Easter dress, and she answered a shade impatiently:
“Yes, yes; va t’en, chérie,” thinking that her little girl wanted to pluck a lily or two.
So the child took a pair of old shears from her mother’s basket, and out she went to where the tall, perfumed lilies were nodding, and shaking off from their glistening petals the rain-drops with which a passing cloud had just laughingly pelted them.
Snip, snap, went the shears here and there, and never did Marie Louise stop plying them till scores of those long-stemmed lilies lay upon the ground. There were far more than she could hold in her small hands, so she literally clasped the great bunch in her arms, and staggered to her feet with it.
Marie Louise was intent upon her purpose, and lost no time in its accomplishment. She was soon trudging earnestly down the lane with her sweet burden, never stopping, and only once[once] glancing aside to cast a reproachful look at Toto, whom she had not wholly forgiven.
She did not in the least mind that the dogs barked, or that the darkies laughed at her. She went straight on to Mr. Billy’s big house, and right into the dining-room, where Mr. Billy sat eating his dinner all alone.
It was a finely-furnished room, but disorderly—very disorderly, as an old bachelor’s personal surroundings sometimes are. A black boy stood waiting upon the table. When little Marie Louise suddenly appeared, with that armful of lilies, Mr. Billy seemed for a moment transfixed at the sight.