"Who was she?" asked Petie,—"a big dog?"
"Ah, dog, no!" cried Marie, her face flushing. "Madame my violon, my life, my pleasure, my friend. Ah, mon Dieu, what friend have I?" Her breast heaved, and she broke into a wild fit of crying, forgetting the child by her side, forgetting everything in the world save the hunger at her heart for the one creature to whom she could speak, and who could speak in turn to her.
Petie sat silent, frightened at the sudden storm of sobs and tears. What had he done, he wondered? At length he mustered courage to touch his friend's arm softly with his little hand.
"I didn't go to do it!" he said. "Don't ye cry, Mis' De Arthenay! I don't know what I did, but I didn't go to do it, nohow."
Marie turned and looked at him, and smiled through her tears. "Dear little Petie!" she said, stroking the curly head, "you done nossing, little Petie. It was the honger, no more! Oh, no more!" she caught her breath, but choked the sob back bravely, and smiled again. Something woke in her child heart, and bade her not sadden the heart of the younger child with a grief which was not his. It is one of the lessons of life, and it was well with Marie that she learned it early.
"Madame, my violon," she resumed after a pause, speaking cheerfully, and wiping her eyes with her apron, "she have many voices, Petie; tousand voices, like all birds, all winds, all song in the world; and she have an angry voice, too, deep down, what make you tr-remble in your heart, if you are bad. Bien! Sometime Coquelicot, he been bad, very bad. He know so much, that make him able for the bad, see, like for the good. Yes! Sometime, he steal the sugar; sometime he come in when we make music, and make wiz us yells, and spoil the music; sometime he make the horreebl' faces at the poppies and make scream them with fear."
"Kin poppies scream?" asked Petie, opening great eyes of wonder. "My! ourn can't. We've got big red ones, biggest ever you see, but I never heerd a sound out of 'em."
Explanations ensued, and a digression in favour of the six puppies, whose noses were softer and whose tails were funnier than anything else in the known, world; and then—
"So Coquelicot, he come and he sit down before the poppies, and he open his mouth, so!" here Marie opened her pretty mouth, and tried to look like a malicious poodle,—with singular lack of success; but Petie was delighted, and clapped his hands and laughed.
"And then," Marie went on, "Lisette, she is the poppies' mother, and she hear them, and she come wiz yells, too, and try to drive Coquelicot, but he take her wiz his teeth and shake her, and throw her away, and go on to make faces, and all is horreebl' noise, to wake deads. So Old Billy call me, and I come, and I go softly behind Coquelicot, and down I put me, and Madame speak in her angry voice justly in Coquelicot's ear. 'La la! tra la li la!' deep down like so, full wiz angryness, terreebl', yes! And Coquelicot he jump, oh my! oh my! never he could jump so of all his life. And the tail bit-ween his legs, and there that he run, run, as if all devils run after him. Yes, funny, Petie, vairy funny!" She laughed, and Petie laughed in violent, noisy peals, as children love to do, each gust of merriment fanning the fire for another, till all control is lost, and the little one drops into an irrepressible fit of the "giggles." So they sat under the pine-trees, the two children, and laughed, and Marie forgot the hunger at her heart; till suddenly she looked and saw her husband standing near, leaning on his rake and gazing at her with grave, uncomprehending eyes. Then the laugh froze on her lips, and she rose hastily, with the little timid smile which was all she had for Jacques (yet he was hungry too, so hungry! and knew not what ailed him!) and went to meet him; while Petie ran away through the grove, as fast as his little legs would carry him.