"It is a nice place down the Bay," said Mirabelle Marie, uneasily.
"Very nice," responded her guest.
"Rose à Charlitte has a good name," she continued, "a very good name."
Vesper fingered his cigarette, and gazed blankly at her.
"They speak good French there," she said.
Her husband and Bidiane stared at her. They had never heard such a sentiment from her lips before. However, they were accustomed to her ways, and they soon got over their surprise.
"Do you not speak French?" asked Vesper.
Mrs. Watercrow shrugged her shoulders. "It is no good. We are all English about here. How can one be French? Way back, when we went to mass, the priest was always botherin'—'Talk French to your young ones. Don't let them forgit the way the old people talked.' One day I come home and says to my biggest boy, 'Va ramasser des écopeaux'" (Go pick up some chips). "He snarl at me, 'Do you mean potatoes?' He didn't like it."
"Did he not understand you?" asked Vesper.
"Naw, naw," said Claude, bitterly. "We 'ave French nebbors, but our young ones don' play with. They don' know French. My wife she speak it w'en we don' want 'em to know w'at we say."