t its roots was kept loose, and
enriched with careful manuring; no grass or weeds were allowed to cling
about it, never was an apple-tree better tended."

Marie paused. "It is not always those that get the most care that do the
best in this world," she said, with a sigh. "There was my Louis, our
eldest, I thought nothing of the others compared with him! and he ran
away to sea and nearly broke my heart."

"Did he ever come back again?" asked the children. Old Marie shook her
head.

"Never," she said. "But I got a letter that he had got the cure somewhere
in the Amerique du sud--I know not where, I have not learnt all about the
geography like these little young ladies--to write for him, before he
died of the yellow fever. And he asked me to forgive him all the sorrows
he had caused me: it was a good letter, and it consoled me much. That was
a long time ago; my Louis would have been in the fifties by now, and my
other children were obedient. The good God sends us comfort."

"And about the apple-tree, tell us more, Marie," said Molly. "Did it do
well?"

"Indeed yes. Mademoiselle can judge, are not the apples good? Ah, yes, it
did well, it grew and it grew, and the first walk I could take with the
hand of the bon papa was to the apple-tree. And the first words I could
say were 'Mi pommier a Malie.' Before many years there were apples, not
so fine at the first, of course, but every year they grew finer and
finer, and always they were for me. What we did not eat were sold, and
the money given to me to keep for the Carnival, when the bon papa would
take me to the town to see the sights."

"And did you grow finer and finer too, Marie?" said Sylvia.

Marie smiled.

"I grew strong and tall, Mademoiselle," she said. "As for more than that
it is not for me to say. But _they_ all thought so, the father and mother
and the eight brothers, and the bon papa, of course, most of all. And so
you see, Mademoiselle, the end was I got spoilt."

"But the apple-tree didn't?"

"No, the apple-tree did its work well. Only I was forgetting to tell you
there came a bad year. Everything was bad--the cows died, the harvest was
poor, the fruit failed. To the last, the bon papa hoped that 'le pommier
de la petite' would do well, though nothing else did, but it was not so.
There was a good show of blossom, but when it came to the apples, _every
one_ was blighted. And the strange thing was, my little young ladies and
little Monsieur, that that