Three Sides of Paradise GreenSeaman, Augusta Huiell
General
Three Sides of Paradise Green
Seaman, Augusta Huiell
Diary fiction; Girls -- Juvenile fiction; Mystery fiction; New England -- Juvenile fiction
"I read in one book," replied the Imp to this objection, "that there was
a rumor that after the dauphin escaped he was taken to America. There
was an American Indian, named Eleazar Williams, or something like that,
who claimed to be the dauphin. So you see it's not so impossible, after
all."
"Now I begin to see," remarked Carol, after a long pause, "what you
meant by some of those three things. If Monsieur thinks Louis is a
descendant of the dauphin, I can understand why they all treat him with
such respect. Why, girls," she cried enthusiastically, "just
think,--Louis--_our Louis_--may have royal blood in his veins! I simply
can't believe it!"
"That remark about 'the Temple look' meant, I suppose," murmured Sue,
"that Louis looked so awfully when he was sick that it reminded Monsieur
how the dauphin must have appeared after his bad treatment and illness
in the Temple Tower. That never occurred to me. But I can't yet see any
connection with what you said about 'Louis the Locksmith.'"
"That's easy," answered the Imp. "It was one of the first things I
thought of. Don't you remember how Louis XVI was always tinkering with
things and fixing locks, and how fond he was of mechanical work? The
whole court used to resent it. Well, the Meadows and Monsieur evidently
think that Louis has inherited that trait, and it drives them wild.
Don't you remember what Louis told us Miss Yvonne once said when she
found him fixing the lock on the kitchen-door? 'The ancient blood! It
will ruin everything!' Doesn't that indicate what they think?"
"True enough," Sue had to admit. "But what foolishness all this is,
girls, when you think of Louis's history and the history of his family!
I was asking Father about Louis's folks not long ago, just out of
curiosity. He said that the Durants had lived in and owned that house
across the Green for many, many years, even longer than our descendants
have lived in our house. It was way back in the eighties when Louis's
father left here and went out West. He was a young man then, about
Father's age. In fact, they'd gone to school together. But this Charles
Durant went away out West to better himself, and rented the old house on
this Green. Father says he never saw him again, because Charles Durant
and the wife he'd married out there were suddenly killed in an accident.
The first Father heard about it was when old Mr. Meadows and his
daughter, whom nobody had ever seen before, came to this place with the
tiny baby who was Louis, and settled here for good. They never said much
about themselves, except that they were old friends of the Durant family
and that they had always lived in France. They explained that they had
come over here to take care of and bring up the last Durant baby, since
its parents had been killed. Now will you tell me how anything about a
dauphin could come in there?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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