--, well when she was little, she was
taken for a visit to her grandmother, who lived in France."

"Didn't she live in France herself?" said Tom; "I thought you said she
was French."

"She was partly French--not all. No, I don't think she lived in France.
They took her there for a visit, so she couldn't have been living there.
She went to stay with her grandmother, I told you, and her grandmother
lived in a queer old town, that was as old as--as old as--" I stopped to
think of the oldest thing I knew.

"As old as old," suggested Tom.

"As old as twenty grandmothers, all top of each 'nother," said Racey.

This was thought very witty, and we spent a minute or two in laughing at
it. Then I started again. "Well, never mind how old it was, any way it
was very old, for mother told me she had once been there herself, and
the churches and houses were all like old castles, the walls were so
thick, and the stones they were made of so grey and worn-looking. And in
this old town once a year, there was a great, great, big fair--you know
what I mean, boys--people used to come from ever so far, bringing things
to sell, and all the biggest streets were set out with little wooden
shops, with all the things in. There were even Turkish and Chinese
people selling things; and all the people in the town, and the country
people round about, used to look forward all the year to the things they
would buy at this fair. It wasn't all for buying though; there were lots
of show things, animals you know, shows of lions and tigers, and snakes
and monkeys, and other shows, like circuses--ladies and gentlemen all
dressed up, and even little children riding round and round on beautiful
horses, and sometimes dancing up in the air on ropes. And there were
music places, and lots of shops too, where you could get nice things to
eat--altogether it was very nice. Marie used to go out for a walk every
day with her nurse, and she always pulled and pulled till she came the
way to where the fair was. But her grandmother told the nurse she must
never take Marie to the fair without _her_, because there were sometimes
such crowds and crowds of people, that the grandmother was afraid Marie
might get hurt some way. Marie cried the day her grandmother said that,
because she wanted very much to go to spend some money that some one had
sent her, or given her; perhaps her father had sent it her in a letter
for her birthday--I think that was it. She was only five years