"YOU are to have a holiday to-day, Mrs. Vevette," was Grace's announcement to me one fine morning somewhere toward the end of September. "Your mother has one of her bad headaches."
"Oh, how sorry I am!" I exclaimed, thinking not of the holiday but of the headache. "Is it very bad, Mrs. Grace?"
"Very bad indeed," returned the lady-in-waiting, solemnly shaking her head; "I have seldom seen her worse. I have been up with her half the night. You must be very quiet, my dear, and not rush up and down-stairs, or drop your books, or—"
"May I go up to the farm and see Mother Jeanne?" I asked, breaking in upon the catalogue of what Grace called my "headlong ways." "I want to teach Lucille that new lace-stitch, and I dare say Jeanne won't mind if I do make a little noise," I added, with some resentment.
Not, of course, that I wished to disturb my mother, or indeed any one else, but I was a little tired of this same catalogue, which had been rehearsed so many times.
"There you go again, breaking right into the middle of a sentence," said Grace. "What would your mother say?"
"Perhaps she would say, 'Don't be always lecturing the child, Grace,'" said I mischievously, quoting some words I had overheard from my mother.
Then, as I saw by her rising color that she was really angry, I threw my arms round her and hugged her.
"There, don't be vexed, Gracy dear; you know I would not disturb maman for the world. But I do really want to go to the farm very much to teach Lucille the lace-stitch you showed me yesterday, and to see the new kittens."
"Kittens! What kittens?" said Grace, who was a dear lover of pussies of all sorts.