CHAPTER X
WHERE IS NUMBER SIX?
“Come, go wadin’; Molly, please come,” coaxed Donald, pulling at his sister’s skirt before the English girls were out of hearing.
“Yes, in a minute, little brother.”
Molly lingered to tell the fish-wife in painstaking French that they were sorry to have interrupted her netting.
The woman puzzled over Molly’s words as Molly and Pauline had previously puzzled over her own, for the language of Paris is far different from the patois of Normandy.
“She looks as black as the boat-house,” observed roguish Pauline, at the same time glancing tenderly at the old peasant, as if paying her a compliment.
“You sha’n’t guy the poor woman, Polly; that’s shabby,” expostulated her comrade. “But tell me how to make her understand what I said.”
“Smile at her, Molly, and shake your head at Donald, then at the seine. See how that will work.”
Apparently it worked well. The fish-wife smiled at Molly in return and spread out the seine to show that it was uninjured.
“It’s a minute now!” cried Donald at the end of his scanty allowance of patience. “Please go, Molly, please, please!”