Read "A Little Maid of Picardy" by Amy Ella Blanchard online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
"Mousse! Mousse! Where is Mousse? " Lucie began calling her pet cat as she ran from kitchen to dining-room to library. At the door of the last named room she stopped short to look around upon the little group gathered there. "Such serious faces, all of you," she exclaimed. "What is it? Mamma, papa, grandfather, you look as if you had lost your last friends. " She perched upon her grandfather's knee and began pulling his moustache so as to make the corners of his mouth turn up. "Smile, _cher grandpère_," she said.
He took her hands gently away and held them in his. "It is a time to be serious, my child," he said. "One cannot smile when there is war to face. I who remember 1870 cannot smile now."