Lucie forced her back upon the seat. “And why am I not to tease as well as you? To read does not hurt one’s feelings, but to be denied one’s country does,” she said. “Did I really hurt your feelings?” Annette asked contritely. “Would it not hurt your feelings if one declared you did not belong to your native country, to France?” “It would most surely,” Annette was obliged to confess, “but I was only teasing my Lucie. As for this Deekens, he bewilders, he confuses me. Is it because you are angry with me and wish me to go that you bring this so impossible book?” “But this you know could not be,” Lucie assured her. “Wait till I have told you. I asked my mother to suggest something from her books which would be interesting to both you and me and she gave me this which she tells me is quite unlike any of the others of this Dickens. It is called ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ and is about the French Revolution. The heroine has my own name of Lucie. My mother says the story is exciting beyond words.” “_Voila une autre chose_,” returned Annette, accepting the situation without further protest. “Let us then proceed.” Usually Lucie’s methods of translation were very free, to say the least. Her way was to skim over a page as rapidly as possible, then relate the contents in her own words. Anything that appeared uninteresting she skipped, consequently the abridged tale which Annette heard was shorn of many of its features and she was frequently bewildered in trying to keep track of the plot and the characters. If she complained of this Lucie would laboriously try to translate literally, which was more bewildering still. Both girls, however, enjoyed such translations as Lucie took pains to make clear. The usual manner would run something like this, Lucie turning over the leaves rapidly: “It was in the year 1775. There was a man in a coach who had a message brought to him. He was to meet a young lady at Dover.” “A young man was this?” Annette queried. “No, an old. He was a banker or something. He had to tell the young lady that her father was living.” “Didn’t she want him to be living?” “That I do not know yet, but anyway she thought him dead. He had been in prison for eighteen years.” “_Ma foi_, Lucie, for what was he imprisoned? He must have been a very bad man. Eighteen years! A lifetime.” “It doesn’t say why he was imprisoned. He may not have been a wicked person. Anyway they went to see him. He was in a tower making shoes.” “Shoes? My Lucie, why should he make shoes?” “O, just to pass away the time.” “But so curious is this. It would not entertain me to spend my time making shoes.” “It might if you wanted to pass away the time and could find nothing else to do. I should think it rather interesting myself.” “For me I should prefer something else; dresses, maybe, or hats. I should not mind at all making hats.” “Men’s hats or ladies’ hats? Straw hats or what?”