he could speak, and
who could speak in turn to her.

Petie sat silent, frightened at the sudden storm of sobs and tears.
What had he done, he wondered? At length he mustered courage to touch
his friend's arm softly with his little hand.

"I didn't go to do it!" he said. "Don't ye cry, Mis' De Arthenay! I
don't know what I did, but I didn't go to do it, nohow."

Marie turned and looked at him, and smiled through her tears. "Dear
little Petie!" she said, stroking the curly head, "you done nossing,
little Petie. It was the honger, no more! Oh, no more!" she caught
her breath, but choked the sob back bravely, and smiled again.
Something woke in her child heart, and bade her not sadden the heart of
the younger child with a grief which was not his. It is one of the
lessons of life, and it was well with Marie that she learned it early.

"Madame, my violon," she resumed after a pause, speaking cheerfully,
and wiping her eyes with her apron, "she have many voices, Petie;
tousand voices, like all birds, all winds, all song in the world; and
she have an angry voice, too, deep down, what make you tr-remble in
your heart, if you are bad. _Bien_! Sometime Coquelicot, he been bad,
very bad. He know so much, that make him able for the bad, see, like
for the good. Yes! Sometime, he steal the sugar; sometime he come in
when we make music, and make wiz us yells, and spoil the music;
sometime he make the horreebl' faces at the poppies and make scream
them with fear."

"Kin poppies scream?" asked Petie, opening great eyes of wonder. "My!
ourn can't. We've got big red ones, biggest ever you see, but I never
heerd a sound out of 'em."

Explanations ensued, and a digression in favour of the six puppies,
whose noses were softer and whose tails were funnier than anything else
in the known, world; and then--

"So Coquelicot, he come and he sit down before the poppies, and he open
his mouth, so!" here Marie opened her pretty mouth, and tried to look
like a malicious poodle,--with singular lack of success; but Petie was
delighted, and clapped his hands and laughed.

"And then," Marie went on, "Lisette, she is the poppies' mother, and
she hear them, and she come wiz yells, too, and try to drive
Coquelicot, but he take her wiz his teeth and shake her, and throw her
away, and go on to make faces, and all is horreebl' noise, to wake
deads. So Old Billy call me, and I come, and I go softly behind
Coquelicot, and down I put me, a