the
good father, who had himself been in former days a notable singer and
choir-master at Notre Dame, kindly taught me my notes.

"Listen, Mathurin," he said to me one day: "you are only a peasant's
son, but you know well your catechism and sol-fa, and some day, perhaps,
if you are good and industrious, you may become a great musician."

This speech filled me with pleasure and pride, and I twanged more
frequently and vigorously than ever upon my teacher's shrill and
discordant old harp.

The favourite recreation of my leisure hours was to walk to the farther
end of the park of Montreuil, and to eat my dinner there with the
workmen who were building, in the avenue of Versailles, a little music
pavilion, by order of the Queen. It was a charming spot.

I used to take with me upon these excursions a little girl of my own
age, named Pierrette, who, because she had such a pretty voice, was also
taught to sing by the cure. In her hand she would carry a large slice of
bread-and-butter, with which her mother, who was the cure's housekeeper,
had provided her. Together we watched with great interest the growth of
the pretty little house.

Pierrette and I were at that time about thirteen years of age. She was
already so beautiful that strangers would pause by the way to pay her
compliments, and I have seen grand ladies descend from their carriages
in order to caress her. She loved me as a brother.

From our infancy we had walked always hand-in-hand, and this grew into
such a settled habit that in all her life I cannot remember once giving
her my arm. Our visits to our favourite spot won for us the friendship
of a young stone-cutter, some eight or ten years older than ourselves.
He was a gentle-natured fellow, sometimes, but not often, mildly gay.
While he worked, we would sit beside him upon a stone or on the ground.
He had made a little song about the stones that he cut, in which he
said that they were harder than the heart of Pierrette, and he played in
a hundred ways upon the words Pierre, Pierrette, Pierrerie, and Pierrot,
to our endless amusement and delight. For our new friend was a poet. His
father had been an architect, but in some way (I know not how) had come
to ruin, and it fell to Michel to retrieve the family fortune. With his
rule and hammer he supported a mother and two little brothers. He worked
bravely at his stones, making couplets all the time; with each large
block he would begin a new poem. His full name