"If only Anna was going away," thought Gladys, "I wouldn't mind anything. I wouldn't mind the not having baths, or tea, or bread and butter, or—or all the things we had at home, if only there was nobody to look so fierce at us. I'd almost rather be Madame Nestor's little servant, like Françoise, if only Anna would go away."
It almost seemed as if her wishes had been overheard by some fairy, for the next morning, when they were called to the second breakfast—which the children counted their dinner—Anna's place was empty! Gladys squeezed Roger's hand under the table, and whispered to him: "She's gone, I do believe she's gone." Then looking up at Madame Nestor she saw her kind old face looking decidedly jollier than usual.
"Yes," she said, nodding her head; "Anna is away. She has gone away for a few days."
Gladys understood her partly but not altogether, but she did not mind. She was only too pleased to find it true, and that was the happiest day they had since they came to the Rue Verte. Madame Nestor sent out to the pastry-cook's near by for some nice little cakes of a kind the children had never tasted before, and which they found delicious, and Monsieur Adolphe said he would get them some roasted chestnuts to eat if they liked them. He found the words in a dictionary which he showed Gladys with great pride, and pointed them out to her, and was quite delighted when she told him how to pronounce them, and added: "I like roast chestnuts very much."
"Mademoiselle shall give me some lessons of English," he said to his mother, his round face beaming with pleasure. "You are quite right, they are little gentlepeople, there is no doubt of it; and I feel sure the Papa will come to fetch them in a few days. He will be very grateful to us for having taken such care of them—it may be a good thing in the end even from a business point of view, for I should have no objection to extend our English connection."
No thought of gain to themselves in any way had entered Madame Nestor's head; but she was too pleased to see her son in such a good humour about the children to say anything to disagree with him.
"He has a good heart, my Adolphe," she said to herself. "It is only Anna that makes him seem what he is not; if she would but stay away altogether! And yet, it would be difficult to find her equal in other ways."
"Speaking of English," she said aloud, "reminds me that those English ladies will be getting impatient for their curtains. And the trimming has not yet come; how slow those makers are! It is a fortnight since they promised it for the end of the week."
"It does not matter much," said Adolphe, "for no one can make them up properly except Anna. She should not have gone away just now; she knows there are several things that require her."
"That is true," said Madame Nestor, and so it was. Mademoiselle Anna seemed purposely to have chosen a most inconvenient time for going off on a visit to her family, and when Madame Nestor reproached her for this she had replied that with all the money the Nestors had received for the two little strangers, they could well afford to engage for the time a first-rate workwoman to replace her. This was the conversation Gladys had heard and a little understood. Poor Madame Nestor, wishing to keep up the children's dignity, had told every one that Mr. Marton had left her plenty of money for them, making the most of the two or three pounds which was all he had been able to spare, and of which she had not as yet touched a farthing.