"Miché, commin yé 'pellé la rie ici?—how do they call this street here?"
It was by the bonnet and dress, disordered though they were, rather than by the haggard face which looked distractedly around, that he recognized the woman to whom he replied in her own patois:
"It is the Rue Burgundy. Where are you going, Madame Delphine?"
She almost leaped from the ground.
"Oh, Père Jerome! mo pas conné,—I dunno. You know w'ere's dad 'ouse of Michè Jean Tomkin? Mo courri 'ci, mo courri là,—mo pas capale li trouvé. I go (run) here—there—I cannot find it," she gesticulated.
"I am going there myself," said he; "but why do you want to see Jean Thompson, Madame Delphine?"
"I 'blige' to see 'im!" she replied, jerking herself half around away, one foot planted forward with an air of excited preoccupation; "I god some' to tell 'im wad I 'blige' to tell 'im!"
"Madame Delphine——"
"Oh! Père Jerome, fo' de love of de good God, show me dad way to de 'ouse of Jean Tomkin!"
Her distressed smile implored pardon for her rudeness.