You must come and see
me and sing to me again. You live with your aunt, Mrs.
Treherne, Mrs. Vavasour tells me."
"Yes," replied Madelon.
"I knew Mrs. Treherne well years ago; tell her from me when
you go home, that an old woman has fallen in love with her
pretty niece, and ask her to bring you to see me. She is
staying at Ashurst, I believe?"
"Yes," said Madelon, "we are both at Dr. Vavasour's house. I
have been there all the spring and summer, and Aunt Barbara
has come for a few weeks before we go home to Cornwall."
"Do you live always in Cornwall?" asked Lady Adelaide. "Have
you never been abroad? Your French and German in singing were
quite perfect, but you seem to me to speak English with a
foreign accent, and a very pretty one too."
"I was born abroad," answered Madelon--"I spent all the first
part of my life on the Continent. I have been in England only
five years."
"Ah, that accounts for it all, then. What part of the
Continent do you come from?"
"I was born in Paris," says unthinking Madelon, "but we--I
travelled about a great deal; one winter I was in Florence,
and another in Nice, but I know Germany and Belgium best.
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