"Take them with you; children are very fond of being in a kitchen when they may," would have seemed a natural reply. But not to those who know what a Paris kitchen is. Even those of large grand houses would astonish many English children and big people, too, who have never happened to see them, and Madame Nestor's kitchen was really no better than a cupboard, and a cupboard more than half filled up with the stove, in and on which everything was cooked. There could be no question of taking the children into the kitchen, and the tiny room behind the shop was very dark and dull. Still it was the only place, and thither their old friend led them, telling them she must now go to cook the breakfast and they must try to amuse themselves; in the afternoon she would perhaps send them out a walk.
Two words in this were intelligible to Gladys.
"We are to be amused, Roger," she said, "and we are to promenade, that means a walk where the band plays like at Whitebeach last summer. I wonder where it can be?"
The glass door which led into the shop had a little curtain across it, but one corner was loose. This Gladys soon discovered.
"See here, Roger," she said, "we can peep into the shop and see if any one comes in. Won't that be fun?"
Roger took his turn of peeping.
"It aren't a pretty shop," he said, "it's all chairs and tables. I'd like a toy-shop, Gladdie, wouldn't you?"
"It wouldn't be much good if we mightn't play with the toys," Gladys replied. "But I'll tell you what, Roger, we might play at beautiful games of houses in there. We could have that corner where there are the pretty blue chairs for our drawing-room, and we might pay visits. Or I might climb in there behind that big sofa and be a princess in a giant's castle, and you might come and fight with the giant and get me out."
"And who'd be the giant?" asked Roger.
"Oh, we can pretend him. I can make a dreadful booing when I see you coming, and you can pretend you see him. But you must have a sword. What would do for a sword?" she went on, looking round. "They haven't even a poker! I wish we had Miss Susan's umbrella."