“Julie, do you know just where your brother is, in what part of America?”
“In what part, monsieur? Is it then so great a city? But, without doubt, there will be one who can tell me where he lives. In our village one knew everybody.”
“Whew!” exclaimed the captain, twirling his thumbs.
“Or I will stand at the corner of the street until he passes by. I shall know him, without doubt, he is so handsome. Oh, monsieur, I would know him anywhere. I knew him instantly the last time I saw him, although he wore the clothes of Jacques, the mason.”
As the captain seemed interested, Julie explained:
“I awoke in the night. It was the dear mamma who stood by my bed with a candle in the hand, and one with her like Jacques until I meet his beautiful eyes. Then I laugh gaily and cry, ‘Ah, behold thee, my brother, covered with plaster! and thy coat too large for thee! Didst thou think to fool me?’ But our mother lays the finger upon her lip, and her face is very pale; and Julien kisses and embraces me without ceasing, and with tears, and I know not what to make of it. Soon they go out and I fall again to sleep. Oh, monsieur, he came that same night to America! It was not an hour after, while I slept—mamma has told me it—that the wicked gendarmes came and searched the house for him!”
“Ah! the gendarmes! and why?”
“Because—mamma said—he had written something in the journals which meant that the Emperor was not a good Emperor; and for that the wicked gendarmes would have put my poor brother in prison.”
“Go on, my pretty one,” said the captain, smiling, “thou knowest how to talk. Thou art more entertaining than a book. How old art thou?”
“Ten years.”