“That is what we said,” said Cécile, gently; “it is only—a little want of breath, a little palpitation. And we might have taken more care perhaps to avoid emotion—to avoid danger; but who can say? Le bon Dieu knows best.”
“I assure you,” said Helen, “I am not alarmed at all about papa. We are not so well off as we were, and he wishes to be quiet, that is all. I think he likes Latour, and I like it. Yes, I think we shall stay all the winter. Perhaps we shall stay always. Janey will not remember any other place.”
“But you—were you not sorry to leave your home?”
“Sorry?” said Helen, meditating. “I ought to have been. I do not quite know, it was so strange. Before I knew that we had left home we were here, or, at all events, at Sainte-Barbe,” she said, with a smile.
“Sainte-Barbe? that is a long way off, beyond Dijon. But tell me, is it not very gloomy in England, more gloomy than here? Thérèse was quite right, I am fiancé, and I shall live in England. Tell me a little about your home.”
“I was thinking of it when I saw you,” said Helen. “Little Janey said the snow was like a great white cake—like the cake we had on Twelfth Night, and that made me think. I thought I saw the room all dressed with holly—we do that in England at Christmas; and all the children from all the parish—they came from miles round—and the great huge cake. The children all came and curtseyed to us when they had their slice of cake, and stared at Janey. She looked like a little fairy princess,” said Helen, with a smile and a sigh. Her new acquaintance looked at her very closely, then gave a glance at the child, who was very simply dressed, not like a princess at all.
“The people loved you very much?” said Cécile; “they do so in England; they do not hate you as aristocrats. I shall be very glad of that. Why should they hate us in France? We try to do what good we can, but there is always suspicion. They think we have no right to differ from them. But how can we help it? It is so, it is not our doing. They have not that feeling in England. They loved you, the people? Oh, how happy I shall be!”
“They were always very nice,” said Helen. “Loved—I don’t know that they loved us. We do not say that word in England except when—except when it is very strong indeed;—but they were always very nice. Though Miss Temple used to say papa was too good—a great deal too liberal, giving them too much—almost everything they wanted.”
“Miss Temple was——?”
“My governess,” said Helen—“my very dear friend; she went away from me and married. I never had a mother, nor Janey either,” she said, in a low tone.