counter to serve this
customer as if she had been a queen, and took from her hand the letter
she brought, with the amount of its postage folded up in a warm bit of
newspaper.

The Captain and his friends looked on with admiration.

"Give her a piece of candy--no, give it to me an' I'll give it to
her," said the Captain eagerly, reaching for his cane and leaving his
chair with more than usual agility; and everybody looked on with
intent while he took a striped stick of peppermint from the
storekeeper and offered it gallantly. There was something in the way
this favor was accepted that savored of the French court and made
every man in the store a lover.

The child made a quaint bow before she reached out her hand with
childish eagerness for the unexpected delight; then she stepped
forward and kissed the Captain.

There was a murmur of delight at this charming courtesy; there was not
a man who would not have liked to find some excuse for walking away
with her, and there was a general sigh as she shut the door behind her
and looked back through the glass with a parting smile.

"That's little French Mary, Alexis's little girl," said the
storekeeper, eager to proclaim his advantage of previous acquaintance.
"She came here yesterday and did an errand for her mother as nice as a
grown person could."

"I never saw a little creatur' with prettier ways," said the Captain,
blushing and tapping his cane on the floor.

This first appearance of the little foreigner on an April day was like
the coming of a young queen to her kingdom. She reigned all summer
over every heart in Dulham--there was not a face but wore its smiles
when French Mary came down the street, not a mother who did not say to
her children that she wished they had such pretty manners and kept
their frocks as neat. The child danced and sang like a fairy, and
condescended to all childish games, and yet, best of all for her
friends, she seemed to see no difference between young and old. She
sometimes followed Captain Weathers home, and discreetly dined or took
tea with him and his housekeeper, an honored guest; on rainy days she
might be found in the shoemaker's shop or the blacksmith's, as still
as a mouse, and with eyes as bright and quick, watching them at their
work; smiling much but speaking little, and teaching as much French as
she learned English. To this day, in Dulham, people laugh and repeat
her strange foreign words and phrases. Alexis, the father, wa