Let us get back to the fur children. It is such a comfort to be able to turn one’s eyes upon something that can never understand the horror about one.
Plain Eliza’s only trick is to put her front paws together, palm to palm, in an attitude of prayer, and wave them. This is called in the family “making pretty paws.” When the children plunge for her and clasp her close, the first cry is always: “Plain Eliza, make pretty paws! Dear Plain Eliza, make pretty paws!”
She will not do it for them every day. Little dogs know very well that human puppies have no real authority over them. Perhaps it is because of the rarity of her condescension in this direction, or perhaps because of the wonderful emphasis of her supplication when she does so condescend, that the youngest of the small exiles, three-year-old Viviane, regards this accomplishment as the very acme of expression. She is a pious babe, and is fond of paying visits to the little Oratory in the Villino. One day her governess observed her wringing and waving her dimpled hands before the altar. When she came out she confided in tones of devout triumph: “I have been making pretty paws to little Jesus.”
Viviane, the most satisfactory type of sturdy childhood it is possible to imagine, combines a great determination, an understanding as solid as her own little person, with an extremely tender heart. She quite realizes the advantages of the good manners which her English governess inculcates, and she can be heard instructing herself in a deep _sotto voce_ when she sits at tea with grown-up entertainers.
“Vivi not speak with her mouth full. Vivi wait. Now Vivi can speak.”
“Good-bye, my little girl,” said her mother to her the other day, sending the child home in advance to her early supper. “I hope you will be good.”
“Vivi good,” was the prompt response, “good, obedient, nice manners at table.”
She walked out of the room with her peculiarly deliberate gait, murmuring the admonition to herself.
During the terribly dry weather in the beginning of May we had a great fire on our moor; whether caused by incendiarism or not remains a moot point. The first hill that rolls up from our valley is now charred half-way. Viviane was much concerned.