"What's the matter?" she asked. "Aren't you glad that your uncle is coming home?"
Jules gave a cautious glance over his shoulder towards the house, and then looked up at Joyce. Heretofore, some inward monitor of pride had closed his lips about himself whenever he had been with her, but, since the Thanksgiving Day that had made them such firm friends, he had wished every hour that he could tell her of his troubles. He felt that she was the only person in the world who took any interest in him. Although she was only three years older than himself, she had that motherly little way with her that eldest daughters are apt to acquire when there is a whole brood of little brothers and sisters constantly claiming attention.
So when Joyce asked again, "What's the matter, Jules?" with so much anxious sympathy in her face and voice, the child found himself blurting out the truth.
"Brossard beat me again last night," he exclaimed. Then, in response to her indignant exclamation, he poured out the whole story of his ill-treatment. "See here!" he cried, in conclusion, unbuttoning his blouse and baring his thin little shoulders. Great red welts lay across them, and one arm was blue with a big mottled bruise.
Joyce shivered and closed her eyes an instant to shut out the sight that brought the quick tears of sympathy.
"Oh, you poor little thing!" she cried. "I'm going to tell madame."
"No, don't!" begged Jules. "If Brossard ever found out that I had told anybody, I believe that he would half kill me. He punishes me for the least thing. I had no breakfast this morning because I dropped an old plate and broke it."
"Do you mean to say," cried Joyce, "that you have been out here in the field since sunrise without a bite to eat?"
Jules nodded.
"Then I'm going straight home to get you something." Before he could answer she was darting over the fields like a little flying squirrel.