“Then we just missed him,” said Kate, in an indifferent tone, though with a somewhat heightened color. “You would have enjoyed meeting him, Hugh. He would have given you the American side of everything at first hand. What I have given you is only a very faint echo.”
“But haven’t you any Canadian songs to give me?” asked Hugh, as the girls were about leaving the piano.
“There’s the old ‘Canadian Boat-song,‘” said Nellie, doubtfully.
“No, no,” said Kate, “that’s all very well for singing on the river. We’ll have it there, by and by. Give Hugh something that has more of a native flavor about it. Sing him one or two of those French Canadian songs you used to be so fond of—‘La Claire Fontaine,’ you know, or ‘En Roulant Ma Boule.’”
“But they are so silly,” objected Nellie.
“Dear me! who expects songs to be sensible nowadays, especially songs of that sort? And Hugh can enjoy a little nonsense to a pretty air, as well as anybody, I’m quite sure. Remember how much Mr. Winthrop used to like them,” said Mrs. Sandford.
“Well, I’ll sing them,” said Nellie; “only, as the air is so simple, you must all of you join in the chorus, after the first time. You can easily catch it up.”
And she proceeded to sing, with much spirit and expression, two or three of the lively French-Canadian airs, which have come down from the old times of voyageurs and trappers—and the whole party caught the fascination and were soon singing, all together, the rollicking chorus of:—
“En roulant ma boule roulant,—en roulant ma boule.”
and the prettier, half-playful, half-serious love ditty, the refrain to “La Claire Fontaine”: