[CHAPTER XI.]
FACE TO FACE.
Madame Delphine found her house neither burned nor rifled.
"Ah! ma piti sans popa! Ah! my little fatherless one!" Her faded bonnet fell back between her shoulders, hanging on by the strings, and her dropped basket, with its "few lill' bécassines-de-mer" dangling from the handle, rolled out its okra and soup-joint upon the floor. "Ma piti! kiss!—kiss!—kiss!"
"But is it good news you have, or bad?" cried the girl, a fourth or fifth time.
"Dieu sait, ma c'ère; mo pas conné!"—God knows, my darling; I cannot tell!
The mother dropped into a chair, covered her face with her apron, and burst into tears, then looked up with an effort to smile, and wept afresh.
"What have you been doing?" asked the daughter, in a long-drawn, fondling tone. She leaned forward and unfastened her mother's bonnet-strings. "Why do you cry?"
"For nothing at all, my darling; for nothing—I am such a fool."