“Mother Barbette is making fig jam and Nannette has given me some croissants. Jean and I will take a little bowl of the jam with us and we will have a picnic in the woods!”
Marie Josephine announced this from the foot of the wide granite steps leading to the terrace at Les Vignes. Hortense sat under a wide-spreading oak tree at the right of the steps. She was doing a piece of tapestry for a fire screen, weaving the glowing colors, crimson, orange, and blue, in and out, and every now and then holding her work in front of her, surveying it critically.
“You are such a baby, Marie Josephine, thinking always of silly plays with that infant, Jean. Why do you not bring your embroidery and sit here with Cécile and me under the tree. You promised maman that you would finish the shawl of Great-aunt Hortense so that she could have it when the cold days come. Her house at Saint Germain is so chilly!” Hortense shook out her silks as she spoke, holding them so that the sunlight flickered through them.
“Bother Great-aunt Hortense! She always fusses and frets about something and maman is so in awe of her. We treat her as though she were the queen. I hate sewing when the sun shines like this. I don’t like it any time. I tried to embroider one rainy day when Jean and I listened to one of Dian’s stories in Mother Barbette’s cottage but I could only think of the story!”
Cécile du Monde, who came walking slowly along a garden path, laughed at Marie Josephine’s last words, but Hortense frowned.
“You are too old to be so silly. You’ll be thirteen in November. We may have to stay here at Les Vignes for a year or even longer before we can go back to Paris. I should think you would want to begin to learn to be a young lady, Marie Josephine!”
“Name of a name, Hortense, do not preach so much!” Marie Josephine returned crossly, but smiled the next moment at her cousin’s horrified expression.
“That is dreadful. You are talking like a peasant. It is because you go so much to Mother Barbette’s cottage. She is a good woman but it will not do for you to pick up expressions of the people!” Hortense frowned again and turning to Cécile, who came and stood at the back of her chair, she said to her: “I wish that Le Pont had some authority over Marie Josephine. She has none at all!”
“Bother!” put in Marie Josephine. “Come, Flambeau!” she called as the dog bounded toward her up the terrace steps. She patted his head while she looked across at her cousin.
“You are not really a prig, Hortense, but you do sound like one sometimes. None of us are as nice as Mother Barbette and we never can be—none of us, except Lisle,” she said.