“You are! a great deal better than some of them. Buck up, I tell you!”
“Bokope!” Soeur Séraphine, passing, paused with a smile of inquiry. “Eet ees to me a word wholly new, la Moriole. It means—vat, for example?”
Honor colored hotly, and hung her head.
“It’s—it’s argot, my Sister!” she confessed meekly. “Slang, you know, we call it. It means to—to collect oneself—to—to take a brace—oh, dear! that’s slang too! I’m afraid ‘buck up’ is really what it does mean, my Sister. Papa used to say it!” she added timidly.
The little Sister glowed sympathetic.
“Tiens! If thy honored father used the expression, it is without doubt a valuable one. Bokope! it is to remember, that!”
She passed on, leaving Honor struggling between amusement and remorse.
The days passed quickly, as days do; they missed Patricia woefully. Even Stephanie confessed to missing her, though she declared, pacing the Garden, arm in arm with her newly-recovered Moriole, that this was nothing compared with the desolation of last week.
“Patricia has behaved nobly, I grant that!” she said. “I forgive her much, even her pride, which is insufferable. But to have thee back, my cherished one, that makes to bound the heart; I could better do without all than to lose thee, my Moriole!”
Was Stephanie always so sentimental? Had she herself been so, before she went to the Châlet? Honor wondered; then she fell to wondering what they were all doing up there. It was four o’clock. The goats would be coming home soon. Perhaps Big Pierre was there, courting Gretli. In that case Zitli would be in his own nook behind the garden, sitting alone, looking at the mountain, thinking perhaps a little of his friend. She must write to them to-night. She had already written once, but Zitli said letters were a rare treat, and she loved to write them.