“Crois pas,” said the younger, shaking her head. She caught Janey up and gave her a sudden kiss. “This little one is delicious,” she said, translating her native idiom into English. “We have so much remarked her in church, everywhere; and you too, Miss——” she added anxiously, lest Helen’s feelings should be hurt. “How shall we call you? Miss——”
Helen’s face grew scarlet. She had never been brought face to face before with this terrible difficulty. Her name had been of no importance in Latour. If her father called himself by one name or another, she knew nothing of it. Mademoiselle was enough for everything.
“Please do not say Miss at all,” she said, the tears (and how sharp they were, like fire more than water!) coming to her eyes. “I am Helen, and she is little Janey. Will you call us so?”
“But it will not be comme il faut to call you Helen the first time we see you, without either Miss or Mademoiselle.”
“We don’t say Miss in England,” said Helen stoutly; “no one says it who is comme il faut,—only the servants.”
The two French girls looked at each other with a little surprise—perhaps they did not like to be supposed ignorant on this point; or perhaps the fervour of Helen’s protest struck them, though they could not tell what it meant. But they were too well bred to make any further difficulty. “Do you like our poor little Latour?” said Cécile. “It is so strange to us to see any new faces here. We shall be so happy to have you all the long winter—that is, if you are going to stay.”
It was Cécile who spoke the best English. The younger one was playing with Janey, and chattering in a mixture of languages which amused and suited them both. Cécile and Helen walked on demurely side by side.
“We shall stay if—if papa likes it,” she said.
“Monsieur your father is not strong?” said Cécile, with a sympathetic look. “I said so when I saw him first. I told mamma that there was something here——” She put her hand to her lips, and the tears filled her eyes. “We lost our dear father all in one moment,” she said; “thus we know what it is to be unquiet. But at least you are warned. You can watch over him, and if there is no crise that goes on for a long time.”
“Oh, there is nothing the matter—I mean, papa is not ill,” cried Helen, half alarmed, half amazed. “At least, it is only——”