But whether Anna's absence was inconvenient or not, it was very pleasant to most people concerned. Adolphe himself took the children out a walk, and though Gladys was at first not quite sure that it was not a little beneath her dignity to let the young man be her "chaperon," she ended by enjoying it very much. Thanks to his broken English and the few French words she was now beginning to understand, they got on very well; and when he had taken them some way out of Paris—or out of the centre of the town rather—in an omnibus, she was obliged to own that it was by no means the gray, grim, crowded, noisy, stuffy place it had seemed to her those first days in the Rue Verte. Poor little Roger was delighted! The carriages and horses were to him the most beautiful sight the world could show; and as they walked home down the Champs Elysées it was quite difficult to get him along, he wanted so constantly to stand still and stare about him.
"How glad I am we had on our best things!" said Gladys, as she hung up her dark-blue braided serge jacket and dress—for long ago Madame Nestor had been obliged to open the big trunk to get out a change of attire for the children—"aren't you, Roger?" She smoothed dawn the scarlet breast on her little black felt hat as she spoke. "This hat is very neat, and so is my dress; but still they are very plain compared to the things all the children that we saw had on. Did you see that little girl in green velvet with a sort of very soft fur, like shaded gray fluff, all round it? And another one in a red silky dress, all trimmed with lace, and a white feather as long—as long as——"
"Was it in that pretty big wide street?" asked Roger. "I saw a little boy like me with a 'plendid coat all over gold buttons."
"That was a little page, not a gentleman," said Gladys, rather contemptuously. "Don't you remember Mrs. Ffolliot's page? Only perhaps he hadn't so many buttons. I'd like to go a walk there every day, wouldn't you?"
But their conversation was interrupted by Madame Nestor's calling them down to have a little roll and a glass of milk, which she had discovered they liked much better than wine and water.
"If only there would come a letter, or if Papa would come—oh, if Papa would but come before that Anna comes back again, everything would get all right! I do hope when he does come that Papa will let me give a nice present to Mrs. Nest," thought Gladys to herself as she was falling asleep that night.
The next day was so bright and fine, that when the children saw Monsieur Adolphe putting on his coat to go out early in the morning they both wished they might go with him, and they told him so. He smiled, but told them in his funny English that it could not be. He was going out in a hurry, and only about business—some orders he was going to get from the English ladies.
"English ladies," repeated Gladys.
"Yes; have you not seen them? They were here one day."