day."

"Yes, yes, but where did she come from? What was the field where she
grew?"

"To be sure, monsieur. It was like this," responded the other.

Thereupon M. Fille proceeded to tell the history, musical with legend,
of Jean Jacques' Grand Tour, of the wreck of the Antoine, of the
marriage of the "seigneur," the home-coming, and the life that followed,
so far as rumour, observation, and a mind with a gift for narrative,
which was not to be incomplete for lack of imagination, could make it.
It was only when he offered his own reflections on Carmen Dolores, now
Carmen Barbille, and on women generally, that Judge Carcasson pulled him
up.

"So, so, I see. She has temperament and so on, but she's unsteady,
and regarded by her neighbours not quite as one that belongs. Bah,
the conceit of every race! They are all the same. The English are the
worst--as though the good God was English. But the child--so beautiful,
you say, and yet more like the father than the mother. He is not
handsome, that Jean Jacques, but I can understand that the little one
should be like him and yet beautiful too. I should like to see the
child."

Suddenly the Clerk of the Court stopped and touched the arm of his
distinguished friend and patron. "That is very easy, monsieur," he said
eagerly, "for there she is in the red wagon yonder, waiting for her
father. She adores him, and that makes trouble sometimes. Then the
mother gets fits, and makes things hard at the Manor Cartier. It is not
all a bed of roses for our Jean Jacques. But there it is. He is very
busy all the time. Something doing always, never still, except when you
will find him by the road-side, or in a tavern with all the people round
him, talking, jesting, and he himself going into a trance with his book
of philosophy. It is very strange that everlasting going, going, going,
and yet that love of his book. I sometimes think it is all pretence, and
that he is all vanity--or almost so. Heaven forgive me for my want of
charity!"

The little round judge cocked his head astutely. "But you say he is kind
to the poor, that he does not treat men hardly who are in debt to him,
and that he will take his coat off his back to give to a tramp--is it
so?"

"As so, as so, monsieur."

"Then he is not all vanity, and because of that he will feel the blow
when it comes--alas, so much he will feel it!"

"What blow, monsieur le juge?--but ah, look, monsieur!" He pointed
eagerly. "There she is, goi