n
then another extraordinary fancy flashed through his thought;--and with
the tutoiement of a parent to a child, with an irresistible outburst of
such tenderness as almost frightened her, he cried: "Oh! merciful
God!--how like her! ... Tell me, darling, your name; ... tell me who
you are?" (Dis-moi qui tu es, mignonne;--dis-moi ton nom.)

... Who was it had asked her the same question, in another idiom ever
so long ago? The man with the black eyes and nose like an eagle's
beak,--the one who gave her the compass. Not this man--no!

She answered, with the timid gravity of surprise:--

--"Chita Viosca"

He still watched her face, and repeated the name slowly,--reiterated it
in a tone of wonderment:--"Chita Viosca?--Chita Viosca!"

--"C'est a dire ..." she said, looking down at her
feet,--"Concha--Conchita." His strange solemnity made her smile,--the
smile of shyness that knows not what else to do. But it was the smile
of dead Adele.

--"Thanks, my child," he exclaimed of a sudden,--in a quick, hoarse,
changed tone. (He felt that his emotion would break loose in some wild
way, if he looked upon her longer.) "I would like to see your mother
this evening; but I now feel too ill to go out. I am going to try to
rest a little."

--"Nothing I can bring you?" she asked,--"some fresh milk?"

--"Nothing now, dear: if I need anything later, I will tell your
mother when she comes."

--"Mamma does not understand French very well."

--"No importa, Conchita;--le hablare en Espanol."

--"Bien, entonces!" she responded, with the same exquisite smile.
"Adios, senor!" ...

But as she turned in going, his piercing eye discerned a little brown
speck below the pretty lobe of her right ear,--just in the peachy curve
between neck and cheek.... His own little Zouzoune had a birthmark like
that!--he remembered the faint pink trace left by his fingers above and
below it the day he had slapped her for overturning his ink bottle ...
"To laimin moin?--to batte moin!"

"Chita!--Chita!"

She did not hear ... After all, what a mistake he might have made!
Were not Nature's coincidences more wonderful than fiction? Better to
wait,--to question the mother first, and thus make sure.

Still--there were so many coincidences! The face, the smile, the eyes,
the voice, the whole charm;--then that mark,--and the fair hair.
Zouzoune had always resembled Adele so strangely! That golden hair was
a Scandinavian bequest to the Florane famil