”‘I don’t mean to be cross,’ said the little girl, ‘but she troubles me, Mother Germain. She would chatter all the way, and I didn’t want to talk. Mamma Germain, there is something very much the matter; you must tell me what it is, for you know. I saw it in Monsieur the Curé’s face, and even, it seemed to me, in the look of the villagers, as I passed. I am so unhappy; tell me what it is. Mamma said I might ask you,’ and the child pushed aside her embroidery frame and knelt down beside her old friend, leaning her elbows on Madame Germain’s knees.”
Chapter Six.
“Mother Germain stroked back the fair hair from Edmée’s forehead.
”‘My lady said I might tell you?’ she said slowly, ‘my dear, do not look so unhappy. It is no such very news. It is only what we have always known would have to be, sooner or later. You are growing a big girl, Edmée—indeed, I should no longer call you thus by your name.’
”‘Ah yes, yes, mamma Germain,’ interrupted the child; ‘to you I must always be Edmée.’
“Madame Germain smiled.
”‘You will always be as dear to me as my own child, whatever name you are called by,’ she said. ‘But as I was saying, Edmée, you are growing a big girl; there are many things young ladies of your station need to learn that cannot be taught in a village like Valmont. And your dear mother has never wished to be separated from you, so she would not send you away to a convent to be educated, as so many young girls are sent. That is why she now feels there is truth in what her brother, my lord the Marquis, is always saying—that she must go to live in Paris for awhile, taking you with her. There you can have lessons of every kind, in all the accomplishments right for you to know. And my lady too—she has lived here so many years, seldom seeing any friends of her own rank—perhaps for her, too, it may be well—this change. It is only natural, sadly as we shall all miss her.’