t we want. You're my niece, and
if my man makes a face when I take you home, all I've to tell him is
that you're a relation, and I'm going to have you with me. It will be
like that with your other uncles and aunts. They will take a relation,
but not strangers."

I felt there was nothing to say. What she said was only too true. I was
not one of the family. I could claim nothing, ask nothing; that would be
begging. And yet I loved them all and they all loved me. Aunt Catherine
sent us to bed, after telling us that we were to be parted the next day.

Scarcely had we got upstairs than they all crowded round me. Lise clung
to me, crying. Then I knew, that in spite of their grief at parting from
one another, it was of me that they thought; they pitied me because I
was alone. I felt, indeed, then that I was their brother. Suddenly an
idea came to me.

"Listen," I said; "even if your aunts and uncles don't want me, I can
see that you consider me one of the family."

"Yes, yes," they all cried.

Lise, who could not speak, just squeezed my hand and looked up at me
with her big, beautiful eyes.

"Well, I'm a brother, and I'll prove it," I said stoutly.

"There's a job with Pernuit; shall I go over and speak to him
to-morrow?" asked Etiennette.

"I don't want a job. If I take a job I shall have to stay in Paris, and
I shan't see you again. I'm going to put on my sheepskin and take my
harp, and go first to one place and then to another where you are all
going to live. I shall see you all one after the other, and I'll carry
the news from one to the other, so you'll all be in touch. I haven't
forgotten my songs nor my dance music, and I'll get enough money to
live."

Every face beamed. I was glad they were so pleased with my idea. For a
long time we talked, then Etiennette made each one go to bed, but no one
slept much that night, I least of all. The next day at daybreak Lise
took me into the garden.

"You want to speak to me?" I asked.

She nodded her head.

"You are unhappy because we are going to be parted? You need not tell
me; I can see it in your eyes, and I am unhappy, too."

She made a sign that it was something else she wanted to say.

"In fifteen days I shall be at Dreuzy, where you are going to live."

She shook her head.

"You don't want me to go to Dreuzy?"

In order for us to understand each other, I made more progress by
questioning. She replied either with a nod or a shake of the head. She
told m