"`If one looks in proper places,' said the maid pertly, `_I_ never before saw a young lady always playing with a clodhopper!' and she came forward as if about to take Edmee by the hand and lead her away. But she reckoned without her host." CHAPTER THREE. Edmee drew herself away. "`Naughty Victorine!' she said. `You shall not call my Pierrot ugly names. Come away, Pierrot; we won't go with her.' "`But you _must_ come, Mademoiselle Edmee; your lady mamma has sent for you,' said Victorine, by no means pleased, but a little afraid of getting into some trouble with this determined young lady. "`Mamma has sent for me? Oh, then I will come. Come, Pierrot, mamma wants us in the drawing-room. You need not wait, Victorine; Pierre will bring me.' "Victorine's face grew very red. "`Nobody wants _him_,' she said. `However, do as you please. Thank goodness, I am not that child's nurse,' she muttered as she walked off with her head in the air. She was in hopes that Pierre, and perhaps Edmee too, would get a good scolding if the boy made his appearance with her in the drawing-room; but she was much mistaken. The children entered the house together, crossing the large cool hall, paved with black and white marble, and then making their way down a side passage of red tiles. Here Pierre stopped: it was the way to the Countess's own rooms, which opened into the large drawing-room by a side door. "`I will wait here,' he said; `if my lady wants me you will come and tell me, will you not, Mademoiselle?' "For it was not often that Pierre returned to the village without some message for his mother from the Countess, who considered her as one of her best and trustiest friends. "Edmee ran into her mother's room--there was no one there, but the doors, one at each side of a tiny anteroom, which led into the big drawing-room, were both open, and voices, those of her father and mother and of another person, reached her ears. She ran gaily in. "`Here you are at last, my pet!' said her mother. `How long you have been! This gentleman has been waiting to see you; he has come all the way from Tours on purpose to--can Edmee guess what he has come for?' "Edmee looked up in the stranger's face with a half-puzzled, half-roguish expression, very pretty to see. "`All!' exclaimed the young man, hastily; `excuse me, Madame--if the young lady could but be taken as she is now, it would be admirable.' "`All in disorder!' exclaimed the countess, laughing. `Why I was just going to send her to have her hair brushed, and to have a clean white, frock put on; she is all tossed and tumbled.'