nd then I saw, sitting in a corner, by a lighted
table, an old man, bowed and shrunken, white hair and white beard
falling all about him, and nothing of his features to be seen save high
cheek-bones and two hawklike eyes which peered up at me.

"So, so, from Jean," he said in a high, piping voice. "Jean's a pretty
boy--ay, ay, Jean's like his father, but neither with a foot like
mine--a foot for the Court, said Frotenac to me--yes, yes, I knew the
great Frotenac--"

The wife interrupted his gossip. "What news from Jean?" said she. "He
hoped to come one day this week."

"He says," responded I gently, "that Jacques Dobrotte owes you ten
francs and a leg of mutton, and that you are to give his great beaver
coat to Gabord the soldier."

"Ay, ay, Gabord the soldier, he that the English spy near sent to
heaven." quavered the old man.

The bitter truth was slowly dawning upon the wife. She was repeating my
words in a whisper, as if to grasp their full meaning.

"He said also," I continued, "'Tell Babette I weep with her.'"

She was very still and dazed; her fingers went to her white lips, and
stayed there for a moment. I never saw such a numb misery in any face.

"And last of all, he said, 'Ah, mon grand homme de Calvaire--bon soir!'"

She turned round, and went and sat down beside the old man, looked into
his face for a minute silently, and then said, "Grandfather, Jean is
dead; our Jean is dead."

The old man peered at her for a moment, then broke into a strange laugh,
which had in it the reflection of a distant misery, and said, "Our
little Jean, our little Jean Labrouk! Ha! ha! There was Villon, Marmon,
Gabriel, and Gouloir, and all their sons; and they all said the same
at the last, 'Mon grand homme--de Calvaire--bon soir!' Then there was
little Jean, the pretty little Jean. He could not row a boat, but he
could ride a horse, and he had an eye like me. Ha, ha! I have seen them
all say good-night. Good-morning, my children, I will say one day, and I
will give them all the news, and I will tell them all I have done these
hundred years. Ha, ha, ha--"

The wife put her fingers on his lips, and, turning to me, said with a
peculiar sorrow, "Will they fetch him to me?"

I assured her that they would.

The old man fixed his eyes on me most strangely, and then, stretching
out his finger and leaning forward, he said, with a voice of senile
wildness, "Ah, ah, the coat of our little Jean!"

I stood there like any cri