. Joyce, suppose you get
the popper and show Jules what the corn is like."

Madame was interested also, as she watched the little brown kernels
shaken back and forth in their wire cage over the glowing coals. When
they began popping open, the little seeds suddenly turning into big
white blossoms, she sent Rosalie running to bring monsieur to see the
novel sight.

"We can eat and work at the same time," said Joyce, as she filled a dish
with the corn, and called Jules back to the table, where he had been
cutting tarletan. "There's no time to lose. See what a funny grain this
is!" she cried, picking up one that lay on the top of the dish. "It
looks like Therese, the fish woman, in her white cap."

"And here is a goat's head," said Jules, picking up another grain. "And
this one looks like a fat pigeon."

He had forgotten his shyness entirely now, and was laughing and talking
as easily as Jack could have done.

"Jules," said Joyce, suddenly, looking around to see that the older
people were too busy with their own conversation to notice hers. "Jules,
why don't you talk to your Uncle Martin the way you do to me? He would
like you lots better if you would. Robard says that you get pale and
frightened every time he speaks to you, and it provokes him for you to
be so timid."

Jules dropped his eyes. "I cannot help it," he exclaimed. "He looks so
grim and cross that my voice just won't come out of my throat when I
open my mouth."

Joyce studied him critically, with her head tipped a little to one side.
"Well, I must say," she exclaimed, finally, "that, for a boy born in
America, you have the least dare about you of anybody I ever saw. Your
Uncle Martin isn't any grimmer or crosser than a man I know at home.
There's Judge Ward, so big and solemn and dignified that everybody is
half way afraid of him. Even grown people have always been particular
about what they said to him.

"Last summer his little nephew, Charley Ward, came to visit him.
Charley's just a little thing, still in dresses, and he calls his uncle,
Bill. Think of anybody daring to call Judge Ward, _Bill!_ No matter what
the judge was doing, or how glum he looked, if Charley took a notion, he
would go up and stand in front of him, and say, 'Laugh, Bill, laugh!' If
the judge happened to be reading, he'd have to put down his book, and no
matter whether he felt funny or not, or whether there was anything to
laugh at or not, he would have to throw his head back and