s there!"

They frankly wept. "Thangg the good God!"

"Yvonne, _chere_, you know, we are the cause of this. 'Tis biccause
juz'--you and me. And she's gone yonder juz' for one thing; to be as
far from her _miserie_ as she can."

"Yes, _chere_, I billieve that. I think even, she muz' not see us when
she's riturning." No footfall sounded, but the cat came in, tail up,
purring. Back in their chamber, with wet cheeks on its unlatched door,
the sisters listened.

"I know what we muz' do, Yvonne, as soon as to-morrow. Tha'z strange I
never saw that biffo'!"

Cupid came and was let in. "She was al-lone, of co'se?" the pair asked
from the edge of their bed.

"Oh, yass'm, o' co'se; in a manneh, yass'm."

"_Mon dieu_! li'l boy. In a manner? But how in a manner? Al-lone is
al-lone! What she was doing?"

"Is I got to tell dat?"

"Ah, '_tit garcon_! Have you not got to tell it?"

"Well, she 'uz--she 'uz prayin'."

"And tha'z the manner she was not al-lone?"

"Yas'm, dass all." The little fellow dropped to his knees, clutched a
knee of either questioner, and wept and sobbed.

XL

M. Beloiseau reached across his workbench and hung up his hammer and
tongs. The varied notes of two or three remote steam-whistles told him
that the hour, of the day after the holiday, was five.

He glanced behind him, through his shop to the street door, where some
one paused awaiting his welcome. He thought of Chester but it was
Landry, with an old broad book under his elbow.

"Ah, come in, Ovide."

As he laid aside his apron he handed the visitor the piece of metal he
had been making beautiful, and waved him to the drawing whose lines it
was taking.

"But those whistles," the bookman said, "they stop the handworkman too."

"Yes. In the days of my father, the days of handwork, they meant only
steamboat', coming, going; but now swarm' of men and women, boys, and
girl', coming, going, living by machinery the machine-made life."

"'Sieur Beloiseau," Landry good-naturedly, said, "you're too just to
condemn a gift of the good God for the misuse men make of it."

Scipion glared and smiled at the same time: "Then let that gift of the
good God be not so hideouzly misuse'."

But Ovide amiably persisted: "Without machinery--plenty of it--I should
not have this book for you, nor I, nor you, ever have been born."

Chester, entering, found Beloiseau looking eagerly into the volume.
"All the same, Landry," the newcomer