The girl nodded many times.
"Périne eat it," she said.
"Listen to her!" Marie exclaimed, patting her cheek approvingly. "And that any one should say she has no sense! She knows as well as any of us, that the great thing in soup is to eat it with an appetite, and so she puts together two and two—"
She was interrupted by the girl.
"Four!" she said abruptly.
Madame Didier, instead of showing astonishment, began to laugh.
"There she is with her numbers again! How strange it is that she should never forget a number or make a mistake in a sum! In taking away or adding together one can't puzzle her. I don't mean that I can't," she continued, apparently addressing no one in particular, "because I am a poor ignorant woman; but wiser people than I. Now, Périne, you shall have your lesson. See here, I shall stand near my bed, and you over there with your face to the wall. Do you understand?"
The girl nodded, and stumbling along towards the place indicated, contrived on her way to knock down and break into atoms a white dish.
"Oh, the unfortunate child!" cried Marie, darting forward. "Another! and it was my last! How many more things will you destroy!"
At this reproach the guilt-stricken Périne covered her face and howled aloud, and Madame Didier's momentary anger passed.