eurre, s'il vous plait_, Mellicent, _ma tres chere.
J'aime beaucoup le beurre, quand il est frais. Est-ce que vous aimez le
beurre plus de la_,--I forget at the moment how you translate _jam, il
fait tres beau, ce apres-midi, n'est pas_?"

She was so absolutely, imperturbably grave that no one dared to laugh.
Mellicent, who took everything in deadly earnest, summoned up courage to
give a mild little squeak of a reply. "_Wee_--_mais hier soir, il
pleut_;" and in the silence that followed Robert was visited with a
mischievous inspiration. He had had French nursery governesses in his
childhood, and had, moreover, spent two years abroad, so that French
came as naturally to him as his own mother-tongue. The temptation to
discompose Miss Peggy was too strong to be resisted. He raised his
dark, square-chinned face, looked straight into her eyes, and rattled
off a breathless sentence to the effect that there was nothing so
necessary as conversation, if one wished to master a foreign language;
that he had talked French in the nursery; and that the same Marie who
had nursed him as a baby was still in his father's service, acting as
maid to his sister. She was getting old now, but was a most faithful
creature, devoted to the family, though she had never overcome her
prejudices against England and English ways. He rattled on until he was
fairly out of breath, and Peggy leant her little chin on her hand, and
stared at him with an expression of absorbing attention. Esther felt
convinced that she did not understand a word of what was being said, but
the moment that Robert stopped, she threw back her head, clasped her
hands together, and exclaimed--

"_Mais certainement, avec_ pleasure!" with such vivacity and Frenchiness
of manner that she was forced into unwilling admiration.

"Has no one else a remark to make?" continued this terrible girl,
collapsing suddenly into English, and looking inquiringly round the
table. "Perhaps there is some other language which you would prefer to
French. It is all the same to me. We ought to strive to become
proficient in foreign tongues. At the school where I was at Brighton
there was a little girl in the fourth form who could write, and even
speak, Greek with admirable fluency. It impressed me very much, for I
myself knew so little of the language. And she was only six--"

"Six!" The boys straightened themselves at that, roused into eager
protest. "Six years old! And spoke Greek!