“If I should see them again, mamma!” exclaimed Geneviève starting up in bed, her eyes sparkling with eagerness, “what dost thou mean? Oh! mamma, dear mamma, do tell me,” she went on, clasping her hands in entreaty, “is it then, can it be, that our English cousins have invited me to go there? Oh! mamma, how delightful. And may I go?”
The eager words and tone struck coldly on the mother’s heart. “Wouldst thou so well like to go, Geneviève?” she said half reproachfully, “to leave us all—the friends of thy childhood, the house where thou wast born?”
The girl’s eyes sank; but only for a moment.
“It would not be for ever, my mother,” she murmured, though in her heart she thought differently. A return to the old dull life, to the struggles and the privations of home, was not the future she had planned for herself, should she obtain the object of her day-dreams—an introduction to her rich English relations.
“One knows not, my child. Changes bring changes,” said Madame Casalis sadly. Then she kissed Geneviève again, and bade her good-night. “I can tell thee no more at present,” she said. “To-morrow thou shalt hear all. Already thy father will blame me for having told thee anything. Sleep well.”
And Geneviève knew by her mother’s tone that she must obey. It was long before she slept, however, and hours before day break she was awake again; awake, and in a fever of excitement, to hear all the details of this wonderful news.
The invitation was a very cordial one. It came from the only cousin of her own generation still left to Madame Casalis. “Madame Methvyn,” she explained to Geneviève, “is the daughter of the cousin of my mother. Thy grandmother was to her ‘tante à la mode de Bretagne.’ The relationship is not therefore of the nearest, which makes the kindness the greater.” And then she told her some of the particulars contained in the letter. The Methvyns had lately had a great sorrow, a death in the family, and the person most affected by this sorrow had been their youngest and only unmarried daughter.
“She has been very lonely,” wrote the mother, “since her sister went away, and our sad loss has deprived her of her chief pleasure and employment. If you will agree to our proposal, my dear cousin, and let your daughter come to be the friend and companion of our child (they must be about the same age), we shall do our utmost to make her happy. And if she is happy with us, we trust she may learn to look upon this as her home. There are changes, though not immediate, impending in the future, which may not improbably render this a desirable arrangement. I have often wished I could have done more to help you with your large family and many anxieties, but now I feel that in what I am asking all the obligation will be on my side; though, as I have said, we shall all do our utmost to make your child happy and to give her all the advantages in our power. It would at least be a better arrangement for her than the one you spoke of in your last letter.”
“What was that, dear mamma?” said Geneviéve, as her mother left off reading.
“I spoke to my cousin of the possibility of its being necessary that thou shouldst one day be a governess, my child,” said her mother. “I thought she might help to place you well—in some good family. The education of thy brothers is already expensive and will be more so.”