Part 3 (2/2)

The locket with the soldier's picture was put away under lock and key.

And Madame Villard continued to wait for her grandchild.

CHAPTER VI

JEANNE

Jeanne grew under the loving and tender care of Suzanne. Never once did Suzanne approach the stately apartment house on the Avenue Champs Elysees. Never once did she allow Jeanne to go in that direction.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JEANNE]

Several years pa.s.sed. Jeanne was now a tall girl. But still Auntie Sue had a terrible feeling about that apartment house.

Suzanne was still known as Auntie Sue. And between the poor little dressmaker and Jeanne, Auntie Sue's Shop had grown up in Paris.

Paris, you know, is the place from which your mother's or auntie's or grandmother's most fas.h.i.+onable clothes come. Nearly everyone who visits Paris buys a Parisian gown.

The French are well dressed. The French dressmakers know well how to cut and fit and sew.

Then, too, when little ones go to Paris with their mothers, they, too, are fitted with dresses and hats and coats made by the Parisian dressmakers.

Auntie Sue fitted many, many children. She fitted children who lived in Paris, also children who came from America and Spain and Italy and Germany and from other parts of the world.

For Auntie Sue's Shop was well known. It was known because, for one thing, Auntie Sue was clever and could make beautiful children's clothes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE WINDOW OF AUNTIE SUE'S SHOP IN PARIS]

It was known for another reason, and perhaps a better one. That reason was Jeanne!

Jeanne put on all of Auntie's little models. She showed them to the people who came to buy clothes for their children.

Jeanne walked about the pretty little room, with its dainty show-cases and Parisian dolls and model coats and hats. She walked about the room and wore the clothes that Auntie Sue had made.

And when the children's mothers came to buy, they said, ”Isn't that a beautiful little coat?” or, ”Doesn't she look sweet in that little dress?”

Jeanne always looked sweet and pretty in everything she wore. Jeanne walked very straight and held her head high and smiled at all the people. She seemed to belong in those clothes.

So every mother thought that her child would look as well as Jeanne looked. Of course some of them did, but not all. Jeanne was known throughout Paris--throughout ”child-and-mother-Paris”--as the ”Little Model.”

You may think that she became haughty and proud because so many people knew about her and came to watch her. But this was not the case at all.

Jeanne never thought of things like that. She was too busy ever to think of such things. While she loved to help Auntie Sue, it was hard work, and often Auntie Sue worried.

”Ma cherie,” she would say to Jeanne as she stroked her silky brown curls, ”you are happy; are you not? You do not mind the work--the hard, hard work? Ah, Jeanne, it is not pleasant sometimes, I know.”

And this was true. For when many, many mothers and children came, Jeanne had to walk back and forth, back and forth, through the room. She had to show the silken dresses, the velvet coats, the little fluffy bonnets and hats. And she always had to smile and answer people's questions to the tune of that smile.

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