“Shakespeare?” repeated Dacier. “Ah! Si je pouvais seulement parler Anglais, mademoiselle!”
“I can speak a little French,” said Anne timidly. “But you mustn’t laugh at my accent.”
They surrounded her then, talking a babel of mixed French and English, and Anne found herself laughing with them, as she tried to reply to their questions.
“May we see the garden?” asked René Dampierre presently. “Oh no! don’t put down the flowers! I would offer to take them, but if they are not in your way, do carry them. They are just right.”
“Oh yes! the goddess of the garden must keep her flowers,” insisted Dacier.
Anne kept them uncomprehendingly, since her compliance seemed to please her guests.
She was mystified. But they were all friendly and kind, and easy to entertain. She had spoken to few men in her life, and she did not know there were any like these. It was a new sensation to be addressed with deference, and regarded with attention.
Never before had Anne felt flattered, and the sensation was agreeable.
She took them to her rose garden, and showed them the quaint old sundial, which, at her instigation, the gardener had brought from an outhouse in which she had discovered it, and set up in a space enclosed by clipped yews.
She showed them her borders of snowy pinks, with the lavender bushes behind them, and the garden she was making, a fancy of her own, (new then,) in which only Shakespeare’s flowers should grow.