ne. No Marie! She look, she run here and there, she cry,
''Tite Marie, where art thou?' No Marie come. She run to the neighbours,
she search, she tear her cap; they tell her, 'Demand of thy son's wife!
The strange ship sailed this morning; we heard child cry; what do we
know?'

"For the wife of Mere Jeanne's Jeannot, she was a devil, as I have told
thee, a devil with both the eyes evil; and none dare say what she had
done, for fear of their children and their cows to die. And then, Mere
Jeanne she tell how she run to Jeannot's house,--she fear nossing, Mere
Jeanne! the good God protect her always. She cry, 'Where is Marie? where
is my child?' And Jeannot's Manon, she laugh, she say, 'Cross the sea
after her, old witch! Who keeps thee?' Then--see, _p'tit Jacques_! see,
Petie! I have not seen this wiz my eyes, no! but in my heart I have
seen, I know! Then Mere Jeanne run at that woman, that devil; and she
pull off her cap and tread it wiz her foot; and she pull out her
hair,--never she had much, but since this day none!--and she scratch her
face and tear the clothes--ah! Mere Jeanne is mild like a cherub till
she is angry, but then-- And that devil scream, scream, but no one come,
no one care; they are all glad, they laugh to hear. Till Jeannot run in,
and catch his mother and hold her hands, and take her home to her house.
She tell me all this, Mere Jeanne, and it is true, and I know it in my
heart. But now she is dead, that witch, and the great devil has her, and
that is well." (I think my father would have lost his wits, Melody, if
he had heard the way my mother talked to me sometimes; but it was a
child's talk, my dear, and there was no harm. A child who had been
brought up among ignorant peasants; how should she know better, poor
little Mother Marie?)

"But now, see, _mes enfants_! We must come back across the sea, for ze
sun, he begin to go away down. So I tell zis, and Mere Jeanne she cry,
she take us wiz her arms, she cannot let us go. But I take Madame on my
arm, I go out in ze street, I begin to play wiz my hand. Then all come,
all run, all cry, 'Marie! Marie is here wiz her _violon_!' And I play,
play and sing, and the little children dance, dance, and _p'tit Jacques_
and Petie take them the hands and dance wiz--

"'Eh! gai, Coco,
Eh! gai, Coco,
Eh! venez voir la danse
Du petit marmot!
Eh! venez voir la danse
Du petit marmot!'

"Adieu,