Talking with Marie Antoinette

I had a biography of Marie Antoinette by Antonia Fraser sitting on my sofa. I had just finished reading it.

My daughter picks it up and opens it, pretending to read.

"ABC," she says.

"Yes, ABC's," I say. "One day I'll teach you to read."

"Yucky," she says, pointing to Marie Antoinette on the front cover. My daughter's nose is all scrunched up.

"Her dress is pretty," I tell her, pointing at the green-blue silk dress she's wearing.

"No pretty," my daughter protests. "Yucky." She then proceeds to have a conversation with Marie Antoinette, hinting, I'm sure at what she wants to do that morning.

"Go out?" she asks Marie Antoinette, already nodding her own head in agreement.

"Does she want to go out with you?" I ask.

"Yes," she says emphatically.

"Go to Tia Tania's?" she asks Marie Antoinette.
Again the nod yes. Tia Tania's house has a recent acquisition--a new little puppy. Sophie is obsessed with it.

"Does she like dogs?" I ask Sophie of Marie Antoinette.

"Yes!" Sophie says.

Actually, Marie Antoinette did like dogs, and probably would have approved of going to Tia Tania's house to see one.