"Eh, my Marie, what is it then that you plan? The people in the country from which she comes have no _fêtes_. It might be that she would think it a folly," answered Father Antoine, by no means sure that Hetty would like such a testimonial.
"All the more, then, she would like it," said Marie. "I have watched her. It is delight to her when they dance about the spring, and she has the great love for flowers."
So Father Antoine, by a little circumlocution, discovered when the birthday would come, and told Marie; and Marie began straightway to go back and forth in the village, with a pleased air of mystery.
The birthday fell on a day in June. It so happened that Hetty was later than usual in leaving her patients that night; and her purpose had been to go home by the nearest way, and not pass through the Square. The villagers had feared this, and had forestalled her; at the turning where she would have left the main road, she found waiting for her the swiftest-footed urchin in all St. Mary's, little Pierre Michaud. The readiest witted, too, and of the freest tongue, and he was charged to bring Aunt Hibba by the way of the Square, but by no means to tell her the reason.
"And if she say me nay, what is it that I am to tell her, then?" urged Pierrre.
"Art thou a fool, Pierre?" said his mother, sharply. "Thou'rt ready enough with excuses, I'll warrant, for thy own purposes: invent one now. It matters not, so that thou bring her here." And Pierre, reassured by this maternal _carte blanche_ for the best lie he could think of, raced away, first tucking securely into a niche of the stone basin the little pot with a red carnation in it which he had brought for his contribution to the birthday _fète_.
When Hetty saw Pierre waiting at the corner, she exclaimed:
"What, Pierre, loitering here! The sunset is no time to idle. Where are your goats?"
"Milked an hour ago, Tantibba,[1] and in the shed," replied Pierre, with a saucy air of having the best of the argument, "and my mother waits in the Square to speak to thee as thou passest."
"I was not going that way, to-night," replied Hetty. "I am in haste. What does she wish? Will it not do as well in the morning?"
Alarmed at this suggestion, young Pierre made a master-stroke of invention, and replied on the instant: