“I don’t know that there is. I don’t know what will be done about Herty,” said Blanche. “I’m afraid he may have to go to school, and we should miss him so, shouldn’t we?”
“There may be a school near enough for him to come home every evening,” said Stasy, who was incapable of seeing anything to do with their new projects in other than the brightest colours. “There he is—coming to call us in.—Well, Herty, what is it?” as a pretty, fair-haired boy came racing along the straight paths to meet them.
“The post has come, and mamma has a letter from England, and dinner will be ready directly, and—and—my guinea-pigs’ salad is all done, and there is no more of the right kind in the garden,” said the little boy. “What shall I do?”
“After dinner you shall go with Aline to the vegetable shop near the market place and buy some lettuce—that is the proper word—not ‘salad,’ when it is a guinea-pig’s affair,” said Stasy.
For it was early summer-time, and the evenings were long and light.
Blanche smiled.
“My dear Stasy, your English is a little open to correction as well as Herty,” she said. “You must not speak of a vegetable shop—‘greengrocers’ is the right name, and—there was something rather odd about the last sentence, ‘a guinea-pig’s affair.’”
“Well, you can’t say ‘a guinea-pig’s business,’ can you?” said Stasy. “Let us ask mamma. I am, above all, anxious to speak perfect English. Let us be most particular for the next few weeks; let us pray mamma to correct us if we make the slightest mistake.”
“I wonder what the letter is that has come,” said Blanche. “I think we had better go in now. Mamma may want us. After dinner, perhaps, she will come out with us a little. How difficult it is to picture this dear old house inhabited by strangers! I think it is charming here in summer; we have never been in the town so late before. I like it ever so much better than Les Rosiers—that is so modern. I wish we were going to stay here till we leave.”
She stood still and gazed on the long, narrow house—irregular and picturesque from age, though with no architectural pretensions at all—which for seventeen years had been her home. The greyish-white walls stood out in the sunshine, one end almost covered with creepers, contrasting vividly with the deep blue sky of the south. Some pigeons flew overhead on their way to their home high up in the stable-yard, the old coachman’s voice talking to his horses sounded in the distance, and the soft drip of the sleepy fountain mingled with the faint noises in the street outside.