"Try me."

"I 'll speak to my husband when he comes in."

"All I ask of you is, that you will not let him tell anyone here that I am on the boat."

"He has a tight mouth—a good head; he will do as I say."

"That settles it," I thought.

"If you will stay here with my baby, I 'll just step over to the cabaret and call him out. We can talk better in the road."

"Yes."

She climbed the steps, and I heard her heavy tread on the deck—her steps on the trestle-boards. After that, nothing for a quarter of an hour, except the soft lap of the river running past the boat.

They came back together, the man with a lantern which he hung at the stern.

"He says, my Jean, that you can come with us, if you will hire out for a month."