ard! Stop her or she'll break her neck!"

The poacher looked up at his daughter then shrugged his shoulders and
squatted down on his ragged haunches, restless eyes searching the
level ocean, as sea-birds search.

Breathless, hot, and laughing, the girl pulled herself up over the
edge of the cliff. I held out my hand to aid her, but she pushed it
away, crying, "Thank you all the same, but here I am!"

"Spawn of the Lizard," I heard the mayor mutter to himself, "like a
snake you wriggle where honest folk fall to destruction!" But he spoke
condescendingly to the bright-eyed, breathless child. "I'll pay six
sous if you'll drum for me."

"I'll do it for love," she said, saucily--"for the love of drumming,
not for your beaux yeux, m'sieu le maire."

The mayor looked at her angrily, but, probably remembering he was at
her mercy, suppressed his wrath and held out the telegram. "Can you
read that, my child?"

The girl, still breathing rapidly from her scramble, rested her hands
on her hips and, head on one side, studied the blue sheets of the
telegram over the mayor's outstretched arm.

"Yes, I can read it. Why not? Can't you?"

"Read? I the mayor of Paradise!" repeated the outraged magistrate.
"What do you mean, lizard of lizards! gorse cat!"

"Now if you are going to say such things I won't drum for you," said
the child, glancing at me out of her sea-blue eyes and giving a shake
to her elf-locks.

"Yes, you will!" bawled the angry mayor. "Shame on your manners,
Jacqueline Garenne! Shame on your hair hanging where all the world can
see it! Shame on your bare legs--"

"Not at all," said the child, unabashed. "God made my legs, m'sieu
the mayor, and my hair, too. If my coiffe does not cover my hair,
neither does the small Paris hat of the Countess de Vassart cover her
hair. Complain of the Countess to m'sieu the cure, then I will listen
to you."

The mayor glared at her, but she tossed her head and laughed.

"Ho fois! Everybody knows what you are," sniffed the mayor--"and
nobody cares, either," he muttered, waddling past me, telegram in
hand.

The child, quite unconcerned, fell into step beside me, saying,
confidentially: "When I was little I used to cry when they talked to
me like that. But I don't now; I've made up my mind that they are no
better than I."

"I don't know why anybody should abuse you," I said, loudly enough
for the mayor to hear. But that functionary waddled on, puffing,
muttering, stopping e