“You don’t know, Coco, that your kind friend, who has given you so many things, is poor now, and unhappy perhaps.”
“We must carry him some more eggs and cake, my little Denise; he’ll like to have them, if he’s poor. When I lived in the old hut with grandma, I used to be so happy when you brought me some white bread! I didn’t use to have it very often then.”
Denise kissed Coco; what the child said had given rise to a secret hope in her heart. She wiped her eyes and returned to the living-room, where the party had been increased by the arrival of a villager, formerly the school-teacher, who had come to pay Mère Fourcy a visit, and at sight of the two young ladies from Paris, had come near knocking over a wardrobe, in order to make a more graceful bow; while Virginie winked at Cézarine, who hid her face in her napkin to avoid laughing in the face of the newcomer, whose features were an exact reproduction of the absurd masks sold in Carnival time.
“Good-day, neighbor Mauflard,” said Mère Fourcy to the ex-school-teacher.
“Good-day, neighbor Fourcy.”
“How goes it, neighbor Mauflard?”
“Very well, neighbor Fourcy. Faith, I didn’t have anything to do, so I says to myself: ‘I’ll just go and see neighbor Fourcy.’”
“That’s right good of you, neighbor.”
“But if you’ve got company, I don’t want to be in the way.”
“Do stay, Monsieur Mauflard,” said Virginie; “we should be terribly distressed to frighten you away.”