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How many months it was since I had heard my own language spoken thus! Tardif had been too glad to speak in his own patois, now I understood it so well; and Minima's prattle had not sounded to me like those few syllables in the deep, cultivated voice which uttered them. "No," I answered, "but you are come to me from Dr. Martin Dobrée." "Very true," he said, "I am his friend's father Dr.
I was sitting down for a few minutes on a low seat, between Minima's bed and one where a little boy of six years of age lay. Both were delirious. He was the little son of Jean, our driver, and the sacristan of the church; and his father had brought him into the ward the evening of the day after Minima had been taken ill. Jean had besought me with tears to be good to his child.
The boys at home used to think me quite as good as them, and better. I asked Monsieur Laurentie if I ought to be baptized over again, and he only smiled, and said I must be as good a little girl as I could be, and it did not much matter. But Pierre, and all the rest, think I'm not as good as them, and I don't like it." I could not help laughing, like Monsieur Laurentie, at Minima's distress.
I had lent it reluctantly, and in spite of myself; and it had never been returned. Minima's wardrobe was still poorer than my own. All the money we could raise was less than two napoleons; and with this we had to make our way to Granville, and thence to Guernsey. We could not travel luxuriously. The next morning we left Noireau on foot.
Martin do it then?" she asked; "he never spends his money in that sort of way. Why doesn't he give auntie as many things as you do?" Martin had been listening to Minima's rebukes with a smile upon his face; but now it clouded a little, and I knew he glanced across to me. I appeared deeply absorbed in the book I held in my hand, and he did not see that I was listening and watching attentively.
My store of money was almost all gone, for our joint expenses had cost more than I had anticipated, and I could very well see that I must not expect Madame Perrier to refund Minima's fare. There was perhaps enough left to carry me back to England, and just land me on its shores. But what then? Where was I to go then?
Jack gave my hand a parting squeeze, and left me there in the open doorway, scarcely knowing whether to go on, and speak to Martin, or run away to my room, and leave him to take his own time. I believe I should have run away, but I heard Minima's voice behind me, calling shrilly to Dr. John, and I could not bear to face him again.
At this very hour my dear Monsieur Laurentie and mademoiselle were taking their simple supper at the little round table, white as wood could be made by scrubbing, but with no cloth upon it. My chair and Minima's would be standing back against the wall. The tears smarted under my eyelids, and I answered at random to the remarks made to me.
I laughed at the oddity of this childish climax in spite of the heaviness of my heart and the springing of my tears. Minima's fresh young fancies were too droll to resist, especially in combination with her shrewd, old-womanish knowledge of many things of which I was ignorant.
I ran down into the salon, where Monsieur Laurentie was seated, as tranquilly as if he had never been away, in his high-backed arm-chair, smiling quietly at Minima's gambols of delight, which ended in her sitting down on a tabouret at his feet. Jean stood just within the door, his hands behind his back, holding his white cotton cap in them: he had been making his report of the day's events.
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