was said, one of the prettiest girls of the
countryside, and, perhaps, he was saying to himself, at the bottom of
his heart, that a lass who had erred might very well err again.

They arrived in front of a very neat little white house.

"There it is," exclaimed the child, and he cried, "Mamma!"

A woman appeared, and the workman instantly left off smiling, for he saw
at once that there was no fooling to be done with the tall pale girl
who stood austerely at her door as though to defend from one man the
threshold of that house where she had already been betrayed by another.
Intimidated, his cap in his hand, he stammered out:

"See, madame, I have brought you back your little boy who had lost
himself near the river."

But Simon flung his arms about his mother's neck and told her, as he
again began to cry:

"No, mamma, I wished to drown myself, because the others had beaten me
--had beaten me--because I have no papa."

A burning redness covered the young woman's cheeks; and, hurt to the
quick, she embraced her child passionately, while the tears coursed down
her face. The man, much moved, stood there, not knowing how to get away.

But Simon suddenly ran to him and said:

"Will you be my papa?"

A deep silence ensued. La Blanchotte, dumb and tortured with shame,
leaned herself against the wall, both her hands upon her heart. The
child, seeing that no answer was made him, replied:

"If you will not, I shall go back and drown myself."

The workman took the matter as a jest and answered, laughing:

"Why, yes, certainly I will."

"What is your name," went on the child, "so that I may tell the others
when they wish to know your name?"

"Philip," answered the man:

Simon was silent a moment so that he might get the name well into his
head; then he stretched out his arms, quite consoled, as he said:

"Well, then, Philip, you are my papa."

The workman, lifting him from the ground, kissed him hastily on both
cheeks, and then walked away very quickly with great strides. When the
child returned to school next day he was received with a spiteful
laugh, and at the end of school, when the lads were on the point of
recommencing, Simon threw these words at their heads as he would have
done a stone: "He is named Philip, my papa."

Yells of delight burst out from all sides.

"Philip who? Philip what? What on earth is Philip? Where did you pick up
your Philip?"

Simon answered nothing; and, immovable in his faith,