“And what else?”
The child did not reply; perhaps his mother had forbidden him to say anything on the subject—perhaps that instinct which precedes intelligence, just as the dawn precedes daylight, warned him to be prudent with a stranger. “Doesn’t your papa ever come to see you?” insisted Chupin.
“Never.”
“Why?”
“Mamma is very poor.”
“And wouldn’t you like to go and see him?”
“I don’t know. But he’ll come some day, and take us away with him to a large house. We shall be all right, then; and he will give us a deal of money and pretty dresses, and I shall have plenty of toys.”
Satisfied on this point, Chupin, pushed his investigations farther. “And do you know this old gentleman who is with your mamma in the other room?”
“Oh, yes!—that’s Mouchon.”
“And who’s Mouchon?”