'No, he's not making it up,' said Anthea; 'it's true, TRUE,
TRUE!--and we are so glad.'
'You would not be capable to torment an old woman?' she said; 'and
it is not possible that it be a dream.'
'It really IS true,' said Cyril; 'and I congratulate you very
much.'
His tone of studied politeness seemed to convince more than the
raptures of the others.
'If I do not dream,' she said, 'Henri come to Manon--and you--you
shall come all with me to Mr the Curate. Is it not?'
Manon was a wrinkled old woman with a red and yellow handkerchief
twisted round her head. She took Henri, who was already sleepy
with the excitement of his Christmas-tree and his visitors, and
when the lady had put on a stiff black cape and a wonderful black
silk bonnet and a pair of black wooden clogs over her black
cashmere house-boots, the whole party went down the road to a
little white house--very like the one they had left--where an old
priest, with a good face, welcomed them with a politeness so great
that it hid his astonishment.
The lady, with her French waving hands and her shrugging French
shoulders and her trembling French speech, told the story. And now
the priest, who knew no English, shrugged HIS shoulders and waved
HIS hands and spoke also in French.
'He thinks,' whispered the Phoenix, 'that her troubles have turned
her brain.
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