Oh, the pleasant autumn afternoons spent sitting together on the mossy walk between the box-hedges, the hum of bees and the scent of roses filling the air, and the sweet monotonous murmur of the sea on the shingly beach in our ears! For, mounting still higher by terraces and another flight of steps through a tumble-down gateway, you came upon the open cliffs; and the long blue line of the sea and the fresh sea-breeze greeted you with a thousand thoughts of home. For England lay beyond the trembling blue line.
I remember it was one of these autumn afternoons, that, coming down from practising, with my music-books under my arm, I met Justine, the genius of the ménage, cook and housekeeper in one, a shrewd woman, who had three objects in life,—to manage les bêtes, as she condescendingly termed the other servants, to please Madame, whom she adored, and to go to church every Sunday and grande fête. Justine was coming in from the garden, with a basket on her arm, in which lay two pigeons that she had just killed. On her fingers she twirled the gory scissors with which she had performed the deed.
"Good day, Justine! How is Madame?"
"Madame is well, thank you, Mademoiselle,—a little headache, that is all,—that comes of so much learning and writing at night. Mais voilà une femme superbe! I go to make her a little dinner of these," pointing to the pigeons.
"Justine, ma bonne, won't you give us the key this afternoon?"
Justine stops suddenly and clasps her fat hands emphatically over the lid of her basket.
"I had almost forgotten, Mademoiselle. Madame desired me to tell the demoiselles that she comes down this evening to sit in the cabinet de musique."
I was delighted with this piece of intelligence, and ran to tell the others. It was not often that Madame deigned to come down-stairs of an evening, and were always glad when she did. In the first place, it was a pleasant break in the monotony of the general routine to sit and work and draw, instead of studying in the empty school-room; and secondly, it was delightful to be with Madame, when she threw off the character of preceptress,—for at such times she was infinitely agreeable, entertaining us in her bright French manner as if we had been her guests.
Madame had a way of charming all who approached her, from Adelaide Sloper's rich, vulgar father, who, when he came to see his daughter, was entertained by Madame au salon, and who was overheard to declare, as he got into his grand carriage, that "that Frenchwoman was the finest woman, by Jove, he'd ever seen!" to the tiny witch Élise, whom nobody could manage, but who, at the first rustle of Madame's gown, would cease from her mischief, fold her small hands, and, sinking her bead-like black eyes, look as demure as such a sprite could. We all adored Madame,—not that she herself was very good, though she was pious in her way, too. She fasted and went regularly to confession and to all the offices, and sometimes at the passing of the Host I have seen her kneeling in the dusty street in a new dress, and I don't know what more you could expect from a Frenchwoman.
Then she was so pretty, and there was a nameless grace in her attitude. She seemed to me so beautiful, as she stood at her desk, with one hand resting on her open book, tall, with something almost imperious in her figure, her head bent, but her deep, lovely gray eyes looking quietly before her and seeming to take in at once the whole school-room with an expression of keen intelligence. She was highly cultivated, and had read widely in many languages; but she wore her learning as gracefully as a bird does its lovely plumage.