s all"--

But there he checked himself and glanced hastily about him.

Then he began again:--

"Esmeraldy," he said,--"Esmeraldy thinks a heap on you. She takes a
sight of comfort out of Mis' Des----I can't call your name, but I mean
your wife."

"Madame Desmarres," I replied, "is rejoiced indeed to have won the
friendship of Mademoiselle."

"Yes," he proceeded, "she takes a sight of comfort in you and all. An'
she needs comfort, does Esmeraldy."

There ensued a slight pause which somewhat embarrassed me, for at every
pause he regarded me with an air of meek and hesitant appeal.

"She's a little down-sperrited is Esmeraldy," he said. "An'," adding
this suddenly in a subdued and fearful tone, "so am I."

Having said this he seemed to feel that he had overstepped a barrier.
He seized the lapel of my coat and held me prisoner, pouring forth his
confessions with a faith in my interest by which I was at once-amazed
and touched.

"You see it's this way," he said,--"it's this way, Mister. We're home
folks, me an' Esmeraldy, an' we're a long way from home, an' it sorter
seems like we didn't get no useder to it than we was at first. We're
not like mother. Mother she was raised in a town,--she was raised in
'Lizabethville,--an' she allers took to town ways; but me an' Esmeraldy,
we was raised in the mountains, right under the shadder of old Bald,
an' town goes hard with us. Seems like we're allers a thinkin' of North
Callina. An' mother she gits outed, which is likely. She says we'd ought
to fit ourselves fur our higher pear, an' I dessay we'd ought,--but you
see it goes sorter hard with us. An' Esmeraldy she has her trouble an' I
can't help a sympathizin' with her, fur young folks will be young folks;
an' I was young folks once myself. Once--once I sot a heap o' store by
mother. So you see-how it is."

"It is very sad, Monsieur," I answered with gravity. Singular as it
may appear, this was not so laughable to me as it might seem. It was so
apparent that he did not anticipate ridicule. And my Clelie's interest
in these people also rendered them sacred in my eyes.

"Yes," he returned, "that's so; an' sometimes it's wuss than you'd
think--when mother's outed. An' that's why I'm glad as Mis' Dimar an'
Esmeraldy is such friends."

It struck me at this moment that he had some request to make of me.
He grasped the lapel of my coat somewhat more tightly as if requiring
additional support, and finally bent forward and addr