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Updated: May 22, 2025
They were standing in the middle of the room, half puzzled as to how they had got there, when Marcelline appeared. "We have been with Dudu," they told her, before she had time to ask them anything. "He has told us lovely stories nicer even than fairy adventures." And Marcelline smiled and seemed pleased, but not at all surprised. "A strange thing has happened," said Jeanne's father the next day.
"No wonder Marcelline told us that we should see the tapestry in the moonlight. I never could have thought it would have looked so pretty. Why, even the peacocks' tails seem to have got all sorts of new colours." He leant forward to examine them better. They were standing just as usual one on each side of the flight of steps leading up to the castle.
Marcelline smiled what Jeanne called her funny smile. "You would find it very difficult to do that, I think, my little Monsieur," she said. "However, you did not miss much last night. The clouds came over so that the moon had no chance. Perhaps it will be clearer to-night."
"Yes," said Jeanne, flinging her arms round the old nurse's neck, and giving her a kiss first on one cheek then on the other; "she is very kind. Nice little old Marcelline." "Perhaps," said Hugh, meditatively, "she remembers that when she was a little girl she liked to do things like that herself." "I don't believe you ever were a little girl, were you, Marcelline?" said Jeanne.
And when Jeanne chattered like that, Marcelline used to smile; she never said anything, she just smiled. Sometimes Jeanne liked to see her smile; sometimes it would make her impatient, and she would say, "Why do you smile like that, Marcelline? Speak! When I speak I like you to speak too." But all she could get Marcelline to answer would be, "Well, Mademoiselle, it is very well what you say."
"Oh dear, what shall I wish?" exclaimed Jeanne. "When you tell me to be quick it all goes out of my head; but I know now. I wish " "Hush, Mademoiselle," said Marcelline, quickly again. "You must not say it aloud. Never mind, it is all right. You have wished it before the spark is gone. It will come true, Mademoiselle."
But we must run quick, or else Marcelline will be calling us before we have got to the chicken-house." Off she set again, and Hugh after her, though not so fast, for Jeanne knew every step of the way, and poor Hugh had never been in the garden before.
She jumped on to Marcelline's knee and pretended to beat her. "You naughty little old woman," she said; "you very naughty little old woman, to say things like that to puzzle me just what you know I don't like. Go back to your own country, naughty old Marcelline; go back to your fairyland, or wherever it was you came from, if you are going to tease poor little Jeanne so."
I do wish I were a princess; next to my best wish of all, I wish to be a princess. Marcelline, do you hear? I want you to tell me a story." Still Marcelline did not reply. She in her turn was looking into the fire. Suddenly she spoke. "One, two, three," she said. "Quick, now, Mademoiselle, quick, quick. Wish a wish before that last spark is gone. Quick, Mademoiselle."
She turned slowly from the window and came near the fire. "If I did catch cold, it would not be bad," she said. "I would stay in bed, and you, Marcelline, would make me nice things to eat, and nobody would say, 'Don't do that, Mademoiselle. It would be charming." Marcelline was Jeanne's old nurse, and she had been her mother's nurse too.
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