“Jean Malin,” the child answered.
“Why are you weeping, Jean? Has some one been unkind to you?”
“No; I am weeping because I have no one to be either unkind or kind to me. I am all alone in the world, and I have no home.”
When the lady heard that she felt very sorry for him. “Come; sit here in the coach beside me,” she said, “and I will take you home with me. My home shall be your home, and I will keep you with me always if you are a good boy and do as I tell you.”
Jean Malin climbed into the coach, and the lady took him home with her. She talked to him and questioned him on the way, and she soon found that he was a clever boy and very polite in his manners.
When they arrived at the lady’s house she gave him a pretty little suit of clothes and bade him wash and dress himself, and then he came in and waited on her at supper.
After that he lived there, and the lady became very fond of him. As for Jean Malin, he soon loved his mistress so dearly that if she had been his own mother he could not have loved her better. Everything she said and did seemed to him exactly right.
The lady had a lover who was a great, handsome man with a fine deep voice. This gentleman often came to the house to take meals with the lady, and he always spoke to Jean Malin very pleasantly; but Jean could not abide him. He used to run and hide whenever this man came to the house. The lady scolded him for it, but he could not help it.
The gentleman’s name was Mr. Bulbul.
“I do not know what is the matter with you,” said the lady to Jean Malin. “Why is it you do not like Mr. Bulbul? He is very kind to you.”