"Thank you, ma'am," said Gladys gravely, and nudging Roger to do the same. Everybody, she had noticed the day before, had called the old lady "madame," but that was the French for "ma'am" Léonie had told her, so she stuck to her native colours.
"Thank you," repeated Roger, but without the "ma'am." "It sounds so silly, nobody says it but servants," he maintained to Gladys, and no doubt it mattered very little whether he said it or not, as Madame Nestor didn't understand, though she was quick enough to see that her little guests meant to say something civil and kind. And the washing was accomplished—I cannot say without difficulty, for Roger tried to stand in the basin and very nearly split it in two, and there was a great splashing of water over the wooden floor—on the whole with success.
Poor Madame Nestor! When she had at last got her charges safely into their various garments, she sat down on a chair by the bed and fairly panted!
"It's much harder than cooking a dinner," she said to herself. "I can't think how my cousin Marie could stand it, if they have this sort of business every morning with English children. And five, six of them as there are sometimes! The English are a curious nation."
But she turned as smilingly as ever to Gladys and Roger; and Gladys, seeing that she was tired, and being sensible enough to understand that the kind old woman was really giving herself a great deal of trouble for their sake, went and stood close beside her, and gently stroked her, as she sometimes used to do—when Miss Susan was not there, be it remarked—to Mrs. Lacy.
"I wish I knew how to say 'thank you' in French," said Gladys to Roger. But Madame Nestor had understood her.
"Little dear," she said in her own language, "she thinks I am tired." The word caught Gladys's ear—"fatigued," she interrupted, "I know what that means. Poor Mrs. Nest," she explained to her little brother, "she says she's fatigued. I think we should kiss her, Roger," and both children lifted up their soft fresh rosy lips to the old woman, which was a language that needed no translation.
"Little dears," she repeated again, "but, all the same, I hope we shall soon have some news from the Papa. Ah!" she interrupted herself; "but there is the clock striking nine, and my breakfast not seen to. I must hasten, but what to do with these angels while I am in the kitchen?"