"But you say that I am now grown up.... The stars are very bright, the fire is in a friendly communicative mood, I think I shall go to my bed when it pleases me, Monsieur le debonair pedler!"
"Very well," said he, with his accustomed shrug of indifference. Then, after a moment's study of Nance, who had resumed her gazing into the fire:
"Of what has the fire been speaking to-night?... Yes?"
"I have been thinking all evening of babies," she replied with charming candor.
"What ever made you think of babies?" he asked quickly.
"Did you notice that dear dimpled little red one at the house where we bought the milk?" was her reply.
"I must confess that I did not see the little Indian," he answered.
"Just like a man," said Nance, ignoring his levity, a trifle of scorn in her voice.
"Little babies in the utterly helpless stage," was Jean François' remark, "have always been just without the limit of my appreciation."
"That's because you are a man," she explained.