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Pixie understood her pupil's love of detail by this time, and Viva put her head on one side and stared at her with gratified admiration. If she had asked her mother, she would have looked tired and sighed, and said, "My dear child! how should I know? Don't ask ridiculous questions," but Mamzelle Paddy knew better than that.
Briggs smiled in superb self-consciousness. "Well, well! I will not deny, Mamzelle, that it spoils us," he said complacently. "It certainly spoils us! 'When lovely woman stoops to folly, the hold, hold story!" "You will r-r-r-emember," said Mamzelle, suddenly stepping up very close to him and speaking with a strong accent, "what I have said to-night! Monsieur Briggs, you will r-remember!
The next moment they were in the drawing-room, and Mrs Wallace was smilingly explaining the title. "I am sure you must have been very much surprised to hear of yesterday's interview, Miss O'Shaughnessy! `mamzelle Paddy, as my husband has named your small sister, has made quite a conquest of my little girls, and Viva refused to be left behind when she heard where I was going.
They spoke with a curious mingling of tongues, but had apparently no difficulty in understanding her when she replied in rapid, colloquial French, so that it was evident that the hours of play had not been wasted, but had the effect of successful study. "Mamzelle! Mamzelle Paddy, we have boats in our house!" cried Viva eagerly.
The children were wild with excitement, but the Captain claimed for himself a quarter of an hour's rest and smoke before proceeding to the difficult business of boiling the kettle; and the two little girls scampered off to explore the island, promising faithfully to keep clear of the banks. "Mamzelle shall stay and talk to me!
Mrs Wallace looked almost like a girl herself in her becoming hat and veil, while the golden-haired child wore a white coat and cap edged with fluffy swan's-down. Sylvia retreated to the dining-room. Pixie ran to meet the visitors at the door, and the voice that exclaimed, "Bon jour, Mamzelle Paddy!" was in itself an augury of friendship.
As she came past Smith and Glenn, trailing her hoe, the latter now sufficiently proficient in French, said gaily: "Have you heard from Jack again, Mamzelle Maryette?" The girl blushed: "I hear from Djack by every mail," she said, with all the transparent honesty that characterized her. Smith grinned: "Just like that!
The elegant-looking woman was plainly the mother of the little girls, but who was this, who was scarcely more than a child herself, who was addressed as "Mamzelle" and spoke with a strong Irish accent? He stared at her, and Viva discovering his glance turned round with her back to the ring, and stared back with leisurely enjoyment.
She looks a child herself. Edith, what nonsense are you talking?" "Sense, my dear, I assure you. The wisest thing I ever did, as you will see before many hours are past. We shall have some peace now that she has arrived. Bon jour, Mamzelle. How I am happy to see thee again! Thou are not fatigued no? Seat thyself in this chair, and I will make known to thee my friends."
Flopper, or, as he called her, "Flopsie," the coachman, and Lady Winsleigh's own maid, Louise Renaud, a prim, sallow-faced Frenchwoman, who, by reason of her nationality, was called by all the inhabitants of the kitchen, "mamzelle," as being a name both short, appropriate, and convenient.
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