"You know I hate people to go on about things I don't understand.

Now you're to tell us a story at once, do you hear, Marcelline ?" Hugh said nothing, but he looked up in Marcelline's face with his grave blue eyes, and the old woman smiled again.

She seemed as if she was going to speak, when just then a servant came upstairs to say that Jeanne's mother wished the children to go downstairs to her for a little.

Jeanne jumped up, delighted to welcome any change.
"You must keep the story for another day, Marcelline," she said, as she ran out of the room.
"I am getting too old to tell stories," said Marcelline, half to herself, half to Hugh, who was following his cousin more slowly.

He stopped for a moment.
"Too old ?" he repeated.
"Yes, Monsieur Cheri, too old," the nurse replied.