On the following day, when Donald again climbed the many flights of stairs and knocked at her door, he found Madame René alone. The pastry-cook advertisement had succeeded: Marie was gone to exercise her talents in behalf of a little hotel on the Seine, where, as she had assured her new employer, she would soon distinguish herself by her industry and sobriety. The almost empty apartment was perfectly neat. Madame René herself had brushed her threadbare gown with care, and, by the aid of spotless white collar and cuffs, given herself quite a holiday appearance. Very soon she and Donald, seated by the shining little window, were talking together in English and like old friends, as indeed they were. The reader shall hear her story in her own words, though not with all the interruptions of conversation under which it was given.
"It's no wonder you thought me a Frenchwoman, Mr. Donald. Many have thought the same of me, from the day I grew up. But though I look so like one, and speak the language readily, I was born in England. I studied French at school, and liked it best of all my lessons. In fact, I studied little else, and even spoke it to myself, for there was no one, excepting the French teacher, who could talk it with me. I never liked him. He was always pulling my ears and treating me like a child when I fancied myself almost a woman. Then I took to reading French stories and romances, and they turned my head. My poor home grew stupid to me, and I took it into my heart to run away and see if I could not get to be a great lady. About that time a French family moved into our neighborhood, and I was proud to talk with the children and to be told that I spoke 'like a native' (just as if I did!), and that, with my black hair and gray eyes, I looked like a Normandy girl. This settled it. I knew my parents never would consent to my leaving home, but I resolved to 'play' I was French, and get a situation in some English family as a French nurse—a real Normandy bonne with a high cap. I was seventeen then. The bonne in the latest romance I had read became a governess, and then married a marquis, the eldest son of her employer, and kept her carriage. Why should not some such wonderful thing happen to me? You see what a silly, wicked girl I was.
"Well, I ran away to another town, took the name of Eloise Louvain (my real name was Elizabeth Luff), and for a time I kept up my part and enjoyed it. The parents who engaged me could not speak French, and as for the children—dear, what a shame it was!—they got all they knew of the language from me. Then I went to live with Madame Lefevre, a Parisian. The lady mistrusted my accent when I spoke French to her, and asked me where I was born; but she seemed to like me for all that, and I stayed with her until she was taken ill and was ordered to the baths at Aix-la-Chapelle for cure. She did not get well, poor lady, and before long I was left in the strange city alone. I had the name of being very quiet, but I was not so by nature. You see I forced myself to speak only in French or broken English, and it was not always easy. At last I saw in a newspaper that a lady in Aix wanted a French maid to go with her to America. Here was my chance. Why, Mr. Donald, if you'll believe me, I wasn't sure but that if I went I'd in time be the bride of the President of America himself! You needn't laugh. Many's the silly girl—yes, and boy, too, for that matter—who gets ridiculous notions from reading romantic books. Well, I answered the advertisement, and then, sir, I became your mother's maid. By this time my French was so good that she might not have found me out; but she was so lovely, so sweet, and sharp withal, that I one day told her the whole truth, and it ended in my writing a letter home by her advice, sending my parents fifty francs, asking their forgiveness, begging them to consent to my going to America with my new lady, and telling them that I would send presents home to them as often as I could. When the answer came, with love from my mother, and signed 'your affectionate and forgiving father, John Luff,' I laughed and cried with joy, and forgot that I was a Normandy bonne. And a bonne I was in earnest, for my lady had the prettiest pair of twins any one could imagine, if I do say it to your face, and such lovely embroidered dresses, more than a yard long, the sleeves tied with the sweetest little ribbon bows—"
Here Donald interrupted the narrative: "What color were they, please?" he asked, at the same time taking out his note-book.
"Pink and blue," was the prompt reply. "Always blue on the boy and pink on the girl; my lady's orders were very strict on that point."
"Did—did the other baby—little Delia, you know—wear pink bows?"
"Not she; never anything but white, for her mamma insisted that white was the only thing for a baby."
"What about their hair?" Donald asked, still holding his note-book and looking at this item: "Girl's hair, yellow, soft, and curly. Boy's hair, pale-brown, very scanty."
"Their hair? Let me see. Why, as I remember, you hadn't any, sir,—at least, none to speak of; neither had the poor little cousin. But my little girl—Miss Dorothy, that is—had the most I ever saw on so young a child; it was golden-yellow, and so curly that it would cling to your fingers when you touched it. I always hated to put a cap on her, but Mrs. Reed had them both in caps from the first. So different from the other lady! She said caps worn all the time were too heating for little heads, and so her baby never had any; but it wore a loose hood when it was taken out in the air. I must hurry on with the story. You know the other baby was never at Aix. We met it and its parents at Havre, when my lady went there to take the steamer to America. You twins were not two months old. And a sad day that was indeed! For the good gentleman, your father—Heaven rest his soul!—died of a fever before you and Miss Dorothy had been in the world a fortnight. Oh, how my lady and the other lady cried about it when they came together! I used to feel so sorry when I saw them grieving, that, to forget it, I'd take you two babies out, one on each arm, and walk the street up and down in front of the hotel. I had become acquainted with a young Frenchman, a travelling photographer; and he, happening to be at Havre, saw me one morning as I was walking with the babies, and he invited me to go to his place, hard by, and have my picture taken, for nothing. It was a wilful thing to do with those two infants, after I had been allowed to walk only a short distance by the hotel; but it was a temptation, and I went. I wouldn't put down the babies though, so he had to take my picture sitting on a rock, with one twin on each arm. If you'll believe it, the babies came out beautifully in the picture, and I was almost as black as a coal. It was like a judgment on me, for I knew my lady would think it shocking in me to carry the two helpless twins to a photographer's."