it off in
her sharp little voice, which was softer than I had ever heard it before,
and that made Carette and all the other girls look at me also, till I was
glad when she was done, I was getting so uncomfortable.

Then, when at last the poor sailor-boy in the story was so full that he
could not take another bite--not even a bite of pancake on which his mother
in her upsetting had sprinkled salt instead of sugar--that poem came to an
end, and by way of a change Aunt Jeanne plunged headlong into--

"Ma Tante est une menagere
Coum je cre qu'i gn'y'en a pouit"--

hitting off in another twenty long verses the strong and weak points of an
old and very managing Auntie, not unlike herself in her good points, and
very unlike her in her bad ones. And we joyfully pointed them all back at
the managing Auntie in front of us, good and bad points alike, and laughed
ourselves almost black in the face at the most telling strokes; all except
young Torode, who laughed, indeed, but not heartily like the rest,--rather
as though he thought us an uncommonly childish set of people for our ages.
And so we were that night, and enjoyed ourselves mightily.

Then young Torode sang "Jean Grain d'orge," in a fine big voice, and
Carette sang "Nico v'nait m' faire l'amour," in a very sweet one, and I was
sorely troubled that I had never learned to sing.

Then to dancing again, and it was only then, as I leaned against the
door-post watching Carette go round and round with young Torode, in a way
that I could not help but feel was smoother and neater than when my arm was
round her, that a chance word between two girls sitting near me startled me
into the knowledge that I had been guilty of another foolishness, and had
overlooked another most important matter that night. You see, I had been in
a flutter ever since I reached home, and one cannot think of everything.

"Oh, Father Guille has promised him his horse, and so--" said the girl,
between giggles and whispers, and it hit me like a stone to think how
stupid I had been. And after a moment's thought I slipped away and ran
quickly down the lane to La Vauroque, calling myself all manner of names
through my teeth, and thumped lustily on George Hamon's door.

He was in bed and fast asleep, and it took much thumping before I heard a
sleepy growl in the upper room, and at last the window rattled open and
Uncle George's towsled head came out with a rough--

"Eh b'en, below there? What's afire