It was not till they were seated at the table that anything was said about her letter.
“You heard from home to-day, my dear,” said her aunt. “I hope you had good news. By the bye, was there nothing for me in your letter?”
Geneviève looked startled and confused. “Nothing for you, aunt?” she repeated, as if hardly taking in the sense of Mrs. Methvyn’s words.
“Yes, don’t you understand me, my dear?” said her aunt, with a touch of impatience, “was there no message? I half expected a letter myself, though—no, perhaps there was hardly time—your mother did not say she had got my letter, did she?”
Geneviève looked still more bewildered. “Oh! yes,” she said slowly, “there was a message. I did not understand.”
“Well, don’t look so frightened about it, my dear child,” exclaimed her aunt, half inclined to laugh at her, “tell me the message. No one is vexed with you when you don’t understand.”
Geneviève looked relieved—the little discussion had given her time to collect her wits; she must tell that her mother had received Mrs. Methvyn’s letter, otherwise her aunt would be expecting an immediate direct acknowledgment of it which would not come.
“I will read you what mamma says,” she replied, putting her hand into her pocket. “Ah! no,” she exclaimed, “the letter is upstairs! But I remember the message quite exactly, I think mamma told me to thank you much for your letter.”
“Ah! then she had got it,” exclaimed Mrs. Methvyn.
“Yes,” said Geneviève, “she had just got it, just as she sent off my letter. She was very busy, she said, preparing to go to the mountains, but she sent many loves to you and my cousin, and she said she would write soon. I think,” she added more slowly, as if endeavouring to recall the exact words, in reality calculating how soon her mother’s letter could arrive, “I think she said she would write to you, my aunt, as soon as they get to the mountains. There mamma is not so occupied, so affairée as at Hivèritz.”