Melmar pleased Desirée, but not so much; she thought it a great deal too square and like a prison; and Patricia did not please her at all, as she was not very slow to intimate.
“Mademoiselle does not love me, Joanna,” she said to her pupil as they wandered about the banks of Tyne together, “to see every thing,” as Joanna said before they began their lessons; “and I never can love any one who does not love me.”
“Patricia does not love anybody,” cried Joanna, “unless maybe herself, and not herself either—right; but never mind, Desirée, I love you, and by-and-by so will Aunt Jean; and oh! if Oswald would only come home!”
“I hope he will not while I am here,” said Desirée, with a little frown; “see! how pretty the sun streams among the trees; but I do not like Melmar so well as that white house at the village; I should like to live there.”
“At the manse?” cried Joanna.
“What is the manse? it is not a great house; would they sell it?” said Desirée.
“Sell it!” Joanna laughed aloud in the contempt of superior knowledge; “but it’s only because you don’t know; they could as well sell the church as the manse.”
“I don’t want the church, however—it’s ugly,” said Desirée; “but if I had money I should buy that white house, and bring mamma and Maria there.”
“Eh, Desirée! your mamma is English—I heard you say so,” cried Joanna.
“Eh bien! did I ever tell you otherwise?” said the little Frenchwoman, impatiently; “she would love that white house on the hill.”