parsley.

That was more likely, for among the people there was every prejudice in
her favour. She was Jersey born, her father was reputed to have laid by
a goodly sum of money--not all got in this Vier Marchi; and that he was
a smuggler and pirate roused a sentiment in their bosoms nearer to envy
than aught else. Go away naked and come back clothed, empty and come
back filled, simple and come back with a wink of knowledge, penniless
and come back with the price of numerous vergees of land, and you might
answer the island catechism without fear. Be lambs in Jersey, but harry
the rest of the world with a lion's tooth, was the eleventh commandment
in the Vier Marchi.

Yes, thought Philip idly now, as he left the square, the girl would
probably marry a rich farmer, and when he came again he should find her
stout of body, and maybe shrewish of face, crying up the virtues of
her black butter and her knitted stockings, having made the yellow silk
canopy above her there into a gorgeous quilt for the nuptial bed.

Yet the young farmers who hovered near her now, buying a glass of cider
or a mogue of soup, received but scant notice. She laughed with them,
treated them lightly, and went about her business again with a toss of
the head. Not once did she show a moment's real interest, not until a
fine upstanding fellow came round the corner from the Rue des Vignes,
and passed her booth.

She was dipping a doughnut into the boiling lard, but she paused with it
suspended. The little dark face took on a warm glow, the eyes glistened.

"Maitre Ranulph!" called the girl softly. Then as the tall fellow turned
to her and lifted his cap she added briskly: "Where away so fast with
face hard as hatchet?"

"Garcon Cart'rette!" he said abstractedly--he had always called her
that.

He was about to move on. She frowned in vexation, yet she saw that he
was pale and heavy-eyed, and she beckoned him to come to her.

"What's gone wrong, big wood-worm?" she said, eyeing him closely, and
striving anxiously to read his face. He looked at her sharply, but the
softness in her black eyes somehow reassured him, and he said quite
kindly:

"Nannin, 'tite garcon, nothing's matter."

"I thought you'd be blithe as a sparrow with your father back from the
grave!" Then as Ranulph's face seemed to darken, she added: "He's not
worse--he's not worse?"

"No, no, he's well enough now," he said, forcing a smile.

She was not satisfied, but she went on tal