“M. le Capitaine Theobald, as you call him, Louise,” I said, “would not know one stuff from another.  It is quite possible that he would like me better in the pink print yonder.  The beautiful things will be quite wasted on him.  He thinks a white muslin frock with a blue sash the finest thing a girl can wear.”

“It is not bad, for an ingenue,” said Louise, thoughtfully.  “But I do not agree with you, Mademoiselle, that he would not admire these lovely things.  He might not know, but he would admire all the same.”

“Possibly,” I said, with patience.  I was not greatly interested in Theobald’s point of view.  I might have altered in my cousin’s eyes; but he had hardly altered to me from the boy with whom I went climbing and skating in the old days.  I could not imagine myself having any sentimentality about Theobald.

“Mademoiselle is too sensible for her years,” said Louise; and I was conscious of a subtle disparagement in the speech.

“I am not sensible at all, Louise,” I answered, with some indignation.  “I am not sensible where grandpapa is concerned, nor grandmamma, I tremble if grandpapa is a little later on a hunting day than we expect him, or on Wednesday when the petty sessions are on at Quinn.  I am terrified about grandmamma if her finger aches; and I lie awake at night imagining all the terrible things that could befall them.”

“Ah, that is affectionateness.  I never said you were not affectionate, Mademoiselle.”

But there was some meaning in Louise’s accusation, although she would say no more, pretending that she was always one to let her tongue run away with her.  Louise had been with Miss Champion these twenty years, and was a privileged person as old servants are amongst us.

When she had finished I went to look for my godmother, and found her with Miss Standish, bathing her forehead with eau-de-Cologne.

“Poor little Bawn,” she said, “you look tired.  Louise has kept you standing too long.  Once set Louise to fitting clothes and she forgets everything.  Could you not sit down here and rest a while before starting for home?”

“Yes, why not sit with me for a while?” Miss Standish put in eagerly.  “I always find your voice restful, Bawn.”

But I would not stay.  I had promised my grandmother to be home by half-past six at latest, and I was not going to have her fretting about my absence.  It was six o’clock now and the shadows were growing longer; the coolness of evening was coming.  The birds were singing their even-song.  As I went down the marble steps in the grassy terraces from the house I saw the peacock and his lady already at roost in a low tree, although the darkness would not come for some hours yet, and indeed would be then only a green twilight.

There was never anything to be afraid of on our roads.  Our valley was in such a quiet isolation, so far away from the main roads, that even a tramp or an importunate beggar were not to be feared.  The labourers going home from the fields touched their caps with a friendly “God save you kindly, Miss Bawn.”  The children by the cottage doors smiled at me shyly.  Even the dogs knew me.  It was the road I had taken to the Creamery and back every day; and I had been familiar with it from my childhood.