Love stories; Nobility -- Great Britain -- Fiction; Switzerland -- Fiction
By a kind of instinct distilled from his experience of clergymen’s
belongings, Godfrey had expected to see a dowdy female, with a red, fat
face, and watery eyes, perhaps wearing an apron and a black dress
hooked awry, accompanied by a snub-nosed little girl with straight
hair, and a cold in the head. In place of these he saw a
fashionably-dressed, Parisian-looking lady, who still seemed quite
young, very pleasant to behold, with her dark eyes and graceful
movements, and a girl, apparently about his own age, who was equally
attractive.
She was brown-eyed, with a quick, mobile face, and a lithe and shapely,
if as yet somewhat unformed figure. The long thick plait in which her
chestnut hair was arranged could not hide its plenitude and beauty,
while the smallness of her hands and feet showed breeding, as did her
manners and presence. The observant Godfrey, at his first sight of
Juliette, for such was her name, marvelled how it was possible that she
should be the daughter of that plain and ungainly old pasteur. On this
point it is enough to say that others had experienced the same wonder,
and remained with their curiosity unsatisfied. But then he might as
well have inquired how he, Godfrey, came to be his father’s son,
since in the whole universe no two creatures could have been more
diverse.
Monsieur Boiset waddled forward, with a gait like to that of a
superannuated duck, followed at some distance by Godfrey and the
stalwart Jean with the luggage.
“My dears,” he called out in his high voice, “I have found
our new little friend; the train brought him safely. Here he is.”
Madame and Juliette looked about them.
“I see him not,” said Madame.
“Where is he?” asked Juliette, in a pleasant girlish voice.
“Still at the gate? And say then, my father,” this in low tones
meant not to be overheard, “who is this monsieur?”
“He is the little boy,” exclaimed the Pasteur, chuckling at his
joke, “but you see he has grown in the train.”
“_Mon Dieu!_” exclaimed Madame, “I wonder if his bed
will be long enough?”
“It is very amusing,” remarked Juliette.
Then they both descended from the verandah, to greet him with foreign
cordiality which, as they spoke rapidly in French, was somewhat lost on
Godfrey. Recognizing their kind intentions, however, he took off his hat
and bowed to each in turn, remarking as he did so:
“_Bonjour, oui. Oui, bonjour_,” the only words in the Gallic
tongue that occurred to him at the moment.
“I speek Engleesh,” said Juliette, with solemn grandeur.
“I’m jolly glad to hear it,” replied Godfrey, “and I
_parle Français_, or soon shall, I hope.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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