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Updated: May 22, 2025
I would not be tired if I had a little friend to play with me." "Keep up your heart, Mademoiselle. Stranger things have happened than that you should have some one to play with." "What do you mean, Marcelline?" said Jeanne, curiously. "Do you know something, Marcelline? Tell me, do. Did you know what my wish was?" she added, eagerly.
And at last one day they told Marcelline what it was they were so anxious to find. She shook her head. There was no such toy in this country, she said, but she did not laugh at them, or seem to think them silly. And she advised them to be content with the prettiest balls they could get, which were of nice smooth buff-coloured leather, very well made, and neither too soft nor too hard.
Hugh followed his little cousin into the room, and stood gazing round him with curious surprise and pleasure. The walls were well lighted up, for Marcelline had carried a lamp upstairs and set it down on the table, and a bright fire was burning in the wide old-fashioned hearth.
It couldn't be a dream then there had been a story, for if he had been asleep, of course he couldn't have heard it. He said nothing, however he waited to see what Jeanne would say. Jeanne tossed back her head impatiently. "Of course I liked it," she said. "It's a beautiful story. But, Marcelline, how did you turn into yourself was it you all the time? Why didn't you leave us with the white lady?"
"But," said Hugh, half timidly, "it is never you would never, I mean, be too old to visit that country, where there are so many stories to be found?" "Perhaps not," said Marcelline, "but even if I found them, I might not be able to tell them. Go and look for them for yourself, Monsieur Chéri; you have not half seen the tapestry castle yet."
She must have grown drowsy with the quiet and the heat of the fire, for she quite started when the door again opened, and Marcelline's voice told her that her mother wanted her to go down to the salon, she had something to say to her. "O Marcelline," said Jeanne, rubbing her eyes, "I didn't know you had gone away. What does mamma want? O Marcelline, I am so sleepy, I would like to go to bed."
Who will give us back those delicious evenings of laughter, jest and chat, when without stirring from home or depending on anything from without our whole household was so happy?" Alas! they were not of long duration. By and by Sister Marcelline went away, leaving her patient a pen on which she had embroidered, "Remember your promises."
"The naughty little Marcelline!" she thought to herself. "She has been tricking me. I believe she knew something was going to happen. Mamma, my dear mamma!" she cried, eagerly but respectfully, "have you something to tell me? Have you had letters, mamma, from the country, where the little cousin lives?" Jeanne's mother softly stroked the cheeks, red enough now, of her excited little daughter.
The white room, the white chairs, the white cats, the spinning-wheel, and the pointed windows, had all gone, and instead there was old Marcelline with her knitting-needles gently clicking in a regular way, that somehow to Hugh seemed mixed up with his remembrance of the soft whirr of the wheel, her neatly frilled cap round her face, and her bright dark eyes smiling down at the children.
And they had hardly got over the laughing though Marcelline did her best to make them sit still for half an hour or so before going to bed when it was time to say good-night and compose themselves to sleep. "I shan't be able to go to sleep for ever so long," said Hugh; "I shall stay awake all the night, I believe." "Oh no, you won't," said Marcelline, with a smile, as she went off with the light.
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