“The idea of taking six months to cure you of a thing like that!” exclaimed Henriette. “And making our baby six months younger than she ought to be!”
“But,” laughed George, “that means that we shall have her so much the longer! She will get married six months later!”
“Oh, dear me,” responded the other, “let us not talk about such things! I am already worried, thinking she will get married some day.”
“For my part,” said George, “I see myself mounting with her on my arm the staircase of the Madeleine.”
“Why the Madeleine?” exclaimed his wife. “Such a very magnificent church!”
“I don’t know—I see her under her white veil, and myself all dressed up, and with an order.”
“With an order!” laughed Henriette. “What do you expect to do to win an order?”
“I don’t know that—but I see myself with it. Explain it as you will, I see myself with an order. I see it all, exactly as if I were there—the Swiss guard with his white stockings and the halbard, and the little milliner’s assistants and the scullion lined up staring.”
“It is far off—all that,” said Henriette. “I don’t like to talk of it. I prefer her as a baby. I want her to grow up—but then I change my mind and think I don’t. I know your mother doesn’t. Do you know, I don’t believe she ever thinks about anything but her little Gervaise.”
“I believe you,” said the father. “The child can certainly boast of having a grandmother who loves her.”