"Law, child! Why, you don't never mean as you're going to cross the seas?"
"Is that the way to France, Mammie Moseley? Oh! Do you really know the way?"
"There's no other way that I ever hear tell on, Cecile. Oh, my dear, you must not do that!"
"But it's just there I've got to go, ma'am; and me and Maurice are a little French boy and girl. We'll be sure to feel all right in France; and when we get to the Pyrenees we'll feel at home. 'Tis there our father lived, and our own mother died, and me and Maurice were born there. I don't see how we can help being at home in the Pyrenees."
"That may be, child; and it may be right to send a letter to yer people, and if they wants you two, and will treat you well, to let you go back to them. But to have little orphans like you wandering about in France all alone, ain't to be thought on, ain't to be thought on, Cecile."
"But whether my people write for me and Maurice or not, ma'am, I must go," said Cecile in a low, firm voice. "I must, because I promised—I promised one that is dead."
"Well, my darling, how can I help you if you won't conwide in me? Oh, Cecile! you're for all the world just like what Susie was; only I hopes as you won't treat us as bad."
"Susie was the girl who slept in our little bedroom," said Cecile. "Was she older than me, ma'am? and was she yer daughter, ma'am?"
"No, Cecile. Susie was nothink to me in the flesh, though, God knows, I loved her like a child of my own. God never gave me a bonnie girl to love and care for, Cecile. I had one boy. Oh! I did worship him, and when Jesus tuk him away and made an angel of him, I thought I'd go near wild. Well, we won't talk on it. He died at five years old. But I don't mind telling you of Susie."
"Oh! please, Mammie!"