Grandmother Dear: A Book for Boys and Girls

alled m

f happy c

not bewail th

apt to that de

, "An Hour

ed, quite confident that she would meet the others in an instant. There were several groups standing ab

to herself; "I wish they hadn't; perhaps

elf in another "salle," which was quite unlike any of the others she had seen. Instead of oil-paintings, it was hung round with colourless en

r heart beginning to beat faster. "I do think they might

other antiquities, uninteresting to a child. The rooms through which she passed were much less crowded than those containing pi

t," she said to herself. "If I could get back to

a great staircase which she fancied she had seen before, she entered another of

e to be here

nce. Her habit of self-control, her unconquerable British dislike to being seen in tears, or to making herself conspicuous, prevented her distress being so visible as to attract general attention. Some few people remarked her as she passed-a forlorn little Evangeline-her pretty face now paler, now more flushed than its wont, as alternations of hope and fear succeeded each other, and wondered if she had lost her party or her way. But she had disappeared before there was time to do more than notice her. More than once she was on the point of asking help or advice from the cocked-hat officials at the doors, but she was afraid. In some ways she was very ignorant and childish for her age, notwithstanding her little womanlinesses and almost precocious good sense, and to tell the truth, a vague misty terror was haunting her brain-a

OST IN T

tion. "No, he had not." How could there be two little demoiselles, "tout-à-fait pareilles?" He shook hi

uities. She was getting so tired, so out of breath, that the excitement now deserted her. She sat down on the ledge of one of the great marble vases, in a corner where her little figure was almost hidden from s

f the anxiety and misery the others must, by this time, be suffering on her account. "Oh, p

ab to take her back to the hotel? But she had no money with her, and no idea what a cab would cost. And she was frightened of strange cabmen, and by no means sure that she could intellig

she said to herself, with her good sense reviving; "

several doors. The best one to wait at would be the one we came in by, if I could but tell which it was. Let me see

to the "Grand Escalier." He sent her straight back through a vestibule she had just le

s confirmed, when, having made her way out through the entrance hall at the foot of the st

ned to run up to the apple-woman and kiss her. "She looks nice," she said to herself, "and

She had stood there a minute or two before its owner noti

, whom she had lost in the crowd. The old woman, with bright black eyes and shrivelled-up, yellow-red cheeks, not unlik

w out a little stool, on which Sylvia was only too glad to seat herself, and feeling a littl

d the street where they were staying, "Ah, yes!" said her informant; "Mademoiselle might

ylvia. "I have no mothe

ed the old woman with increased interest.

die?" sai

was orphan, Mademoiselle, and I was obliged to be out all day, and she would come too. And it is so c

wall against which the old woman had placed the stool, feeling very depressed and weary-so weary that she did not feel able to do anything but sit still, which no doubt from every point of v

dies are sure to come out here. I will watch well those who pass. A little demoisell

out the Louvre; that, in reality, had not occupied more than three quarters of an hour, but with the fright and excitement,

one would be obliged to leave the palace. She felt satisfied that the old woman would be on the look-out for the little party she had described to her, and she thought vaguely that she would ask grandmother to give her a sixpence or a shilling-no, not a s

fear came over her, when in one corner she saw the hangings move, and from behind the tapestry a hand, a very long white hand, appear. Whose could it be? Sylvia's fear increased to terror when it suddenly struck her that this must be the night of the 14th of May, the night on which Henry of Navarre was to be killed. She gave a scream of terror, or what she fancied a scream; in reality it was the faintest of muffled sounds, like the tiny squeal of a distressed mouse, which seemed to startle the owner of the hand into quicker measures. He threw back the hangings and came towards Sylvia, addressing her distinctly. The voice was so kind that her courage returne

ranger, and curiously enough his voice sounded very li

a hes

stranger had addressed her in French, he seemed quite to understand her. "I am

. Never mind. If you come with me I'll take you to them. I know all

but Sylvia hesitated.

lickered over the

I am surprised at that. I th

ne of the pictures in the long gallery. I remember l

and again his voice sounded exactly like that of the cocked-hat who would not understand when she had aske

aid. "If you are not the

tween this room, where I was killed and the 'Salle des Caryat

Fourth, I am so afraid of them coming to kill you again. Come, let us run qui

ook it and held it a moment in his, and a

le grand-daughter like Mademoiselle. I am alone, always alo

o had been gently shaking her awake, and who now stood pointing out to her a little group of four people hurrying towards them, of whom the foremost, hurrying the fastest of al

I thought perhaps they had taken you away to one of the places where the tops of the beds come down, or to that other place on the river, the Mo

a corner of her apron. You may be sure grandmother gave her a present, I rather thi

ho had not seen Sylvia, only unfortunately they had not managed to communicate with the cocked-hats who had seen her, and they had shown the greatest zeal in trying to "match" the little girl in the cream-coloured hat, held out to them as a pattern by the brisk old lady in black, who spoke such beautiful French, that they "demanded them

"if we begin by losing one of them?" And she unmercifully snubbed Ralph's not unreasonable

ate her remarkable dream, he teased her unmercifully the whole evening about her description of the personal appearance of Henry the Fourth. He was, according to Ralph, neither tall nor pale, and he certainly could not have had long thin hands, nor did people-kings, that is to say, at that date-wear lace ruffle

he was dressed. It was very clever of Sylvia to dream such a nice dream about re

ating creatures