let,
See the web that the weaver weaves,
The web of sleep that the weaver weaves--
Weaves, weaves, weaves!
Over those eyes of violet,
Over those eyes of my Fanchonette,
Weaves, weaves, weaves--
See the web that the weaver weaves!"

For quite two minutes Jean Jacques and Norah Doyle stooped over
the cradle, looking at Zoe's rosy, healthy, pretty face, as though
unconscious of each other, and only conscious of the child. When Jean
Jacques had finished the long first verse of the chanson, and would have
begun another, Norah made a protesting gesture.

"She's asleep, and there's no more need," she said. "Wasn't it a good
lullaby, madame?" Jean Jacques asked.

"So, so," she replied, on her defence again.

"It was good enough for her mother," he replied, pointing to the cradle.

"It's French and fanciful," she retorted--"both music and words."

"The child's French--what would you have?" asked Jean Jacques
indignantly.

"The child's father was English, and she's goin' to be English, the
darlin', from now on and on and on. That's settled. There's manny an
English and Irish lullaby that'll be sung to her hence and onward; and
there's manny an English song she'll sing when she's got her voice, and
is big enough. Well, I think she'll sing like a canary."

"Do the birds sing in English?" exclaimed Jean Jacques, with anger in
his face now. Was there ever any vanity like the vanity of these people
who had made the conquest of Quebec, when sixteen Barbilles lost their
lives, one of them being aide-de-camp to M. Vaudreuil, the governor!

"All the canaries I ever heard sung in English," she returned
stubbornly.

"How do Frenchmen understand their singing, then?" irritably questioned
Jean Jacques.

"Well, in translation only," she retorted, and with her sharp white
teeth she again bit the black thread of her needle, tied the end into a
little knot, and began to mend the waistcoat which she had laid down in
the first moments of the interview.

"I want the child," Jean Jacques insisted abruptly. "I'll wait till she
wakes, and then I'll wrap her up and take her away."

"Didn't you hear me say she was to be brought up English?" asked Norah,
with a slowness which clothed her fiercest impulses.

"Name of God, do you think I'll let you have her!" returned Jean Jacques
with asperity and decision. "You say you are alone, you and your M'sieu'
Nolan. Well, I am alone--all alone in the world, an