“Your nurse is a silly creature, and so are you, mademoiselle,” said her mother hastily; “I shall forbid her to talk to you about such things.”
“Oh! I have heard about it too,” said Henriette, “and the nurse declared that she has seen, or heard, the spectre near the little summer-house.”
“Mon Dieu! what idiots those people are! And how can you repeat such things, Henriette—such a sensible girl as you are?”
Madame Ernest seemed very much irritated that there had been any talk of spectres. I began to laugh.
“Why, really,” I said, “it almost seems as if you took the thing seriously. Do you imagine that I am going to run off as fast as I can because these children say that there’s a spectre in your house?”
“No, of course not; but don’t you agree with me that it’s wrong to make children timid by talking to them about such things?”
“That is the very reason why it is better to laugh with them than to be angry. I am very sure that you are not afraid of the spectre, Henriette, because you understand that there are no such things.”
“Oh! papa, I don’t know whether there are any such things, but I’m a little bit afraid too. And the other night I woke up and thought I saw something white going out of my room. Oh! I wanted to shriek; but I just put my head under the bedclothes.”
“But, my dear love, you ought to find out first of all what you’re afraid of. What is a spectre? Tell me.”
“It is—I don’t know, papa.”