"But why?" asked the deaconess, surprised at this answer.
"'Cause I'm a little French girl, please, teacher. Me and Maurice we're both French, and 'tis very important indeed for me to know the way to France, and about France, when we get there; and Jography tells all about it, don't it, teacher?"
"Why, yes, I suppose so," said the young teacher, laughing. So Cecile got her first lesson in geography, and a pair of bold, handsome black eyes often glanced almost wistfully in her direction as she learned. That night, at the door of the night-school, the boy with the fiddle came up to Cecile and Maurice.
"I say, little Jography," he exclaimed, "you ain't really French, be you?"
"I'm Cecile D'Albert, and this is Maurice D'Albert," answered Cecile. "Yes, we're a little French boy and girl, me and Maurice. We come from the south, from the Pyrenees."
The tall lad sighed.
"La Belle France!" he exclaimed with sudden fervor. He caught Cecile's little hand and wrung it, then he hurried away.
After this he had once or twice again spoken to the children, but they had never got beyond the outside limits of friendship. And now behold! on this desolate sandy plain outside the far-famed town of Calais, the poor little French wanderers, who knew not a single word of their native language, and the tall boy with the fiddle met. It was surprising how that slight acquaintance in London ripened on the instant into violent friendship.
Maurice, in his ecstasy at seeing a face he knew actually kissed the tall boy, and Cecile's eyes over-flowed with happy tears.
"Oh! do sit down near us. Do help us, we're such a perplexed little boy and girl," she said; "do talk to us for a little bit, kind tall English boy."