"You hear, Rose Benoit? I have eight left," adds Miss Genseigne.
Rose Benoit lapses into a deep revery. She hears Miss Genseigne say she has eight left, but whether it is eight hats or handkerchiefs, or for that matter eight apples or pens she does not know. The thing worries her for quite a long while. She understands very little about arithmetic.
On the other hand she is very well up in sacred history. Miss Genseigne has not a single scholar who can describe the garden of Eden or Noah's Ark like Rose Benoit. Rose Benoit knows all the flowers of paradise and all the animals that were in the ark. She knows as many fables as Miss Genseigne herself. She knows all the story of the Crow and the Fox, of the Ass and the Little Dog, of the Cock and the Pullet. It never surprises her to hear it said that the animals talked in the olden days.
She would be more surprised to hear that they did not talk any more. She is quite sure that she understands the language of her big dog Tom, and of little Cheep her canary. And she is right, too. Animals have always talked, and always will talk, but they talk only to their friends. Rose Benoit loves them and they love her. That's why she understands them. To be understood there is nothing like sympathy.