"Madame de Bessieres often spoke of you, Elinor," said Jane. "She bid me ask if you remembered all the pet names she used to call you, but I forgot to mention it when I wrote."
"Just as you forget many other things, naughty girl; I must say you are anything but a model correspondent, Jenny, dear."
"Well, I can't help it—I do dislike so to write!"
"You need not tell me that," said Elinor, laughing. "But I do remember all Madame de Bessieres' kind names very well. It was sometimes, mon lapin, mon lapin dore, mon chou, ma mere—they all sounded pleasantly to me, she spoke them so kindly. But sometimes to vex me, the other children—Master Harry among others—used to translate them; and, though rabbit, and golden rabbit, sounded very well in English, I did not care to be called cabbage."
{"mon lapin" = my rabbit; "mon chou" = my cabbage, a term of endearment; "dore" = golden; "ma mere" = my mother (French)}
"Did you like the young people you met in Paris, Jane?" asked
Miss Wyllys.
"Oh, yes; the young men don't trouble you to entertain them, and the girls are very good-natured and pleasant."
"Louisa seems to think the French girls are charming—so graceful, and pleasing, and modest; really accomplished, and well educated, too, she says—all that young women ought to be."
"Yes, she says that she hopes her little girls will be as well educated as Madame de Bessieres' grand-daughters," said Jane.
"Well, I hope my little namesake may answer her mother's expectations. She is a sweet little puss now, at any rate. Louisa was quite vexed yesterday, with Mrs. Van Horne, who asked her if the French girls were not all artful, and hypocritical. She answered her, that, on the contrary, those she saw the most frequently, were modest, ingenuous, and thoroughly well-principled in every way, besides being very accomplished. She laid great stress on one point, the respect invariably paid by the young to the old, not only among the women, but the men, too."