Marie

country, striking the windows of a farmhouse here and there into sudden flame, or resting more softly on tree-tops and hanging slopes. They were like fiddle-

e the violin, the Lady, one's own heart and life, and Marie was to have a fiddle that he had picked up anywhere, found on an ash-heap, most likely! Ah, and now he had lost the Lady and Marie too, and who would play for him this evening, and draw the children out of the houses? he! let some one tell Marie that! It had not been hard, the running away, for no one would ever have thought of Marie's daring to do such a thing. She belonged to Le Boss, as much as the tent or the ponies, or his own ugly girl: so they all thought in the tro

growth of birches. She had played steadily as she passed through the wood and over the stream, and only ceased when she gained the brow of the hill and sprang like a deer down the opposite slope. No one had seen her go, she was sure of that; and now they could never tell which way she had turned, and would be far more likely to run back along the road. How they would shout and scream, and how Le Boss would swear! Ah, no more would he swear at Marie because people did not always give money, being perhaps poor themselves, or unwilling to give to so ugly a face as his girl's, who carried round the dish. No more! And La Patronne would be sorry perhaps a little,-she had the good heart,

wagon; La Patronne took care of all the Sunday clothes, and there had been no chance to get at anything, even if she could have been hampered by such things as shoes, with the Lady to carry. It did not in the least matter about shoes, when it was summer: when the road was hot, one walked in the cool grass at the side; when there was no grass-eh, one waited till one came to some. They were only for state, these shoes. They were stiff and hard, and the heel-places hurt: it was different for La Patronne, who wore stockings under hers. But here were the houses, and it was time to play.

ance before the head. Sure enough, the door opened in another moment, and the child came slipping out: not with flying steps, as a city child would come, to whom wandering musicians were a thing of every day; but shyly, with sidelong movements, clinging to the wall as it advanced, and only daring by stealth to lift its eyes

e! for you I play, for you I sing too, if you will. Ah, the pretty

gai,

gai,

ez voir

tit m

ez voir

tit m

s as they ran. Then Mrs. Piper, who was always foolish about music, her neighbors said, came to her door, and Mrs. Post opposite, who was as deaf as her namesake, came to see what Susan Piper was after, loitering round the door when the men-folks were coming in to their supper: and so with one thing and another, Marie had quite a little crowd around her, and was feeling happy and pleased, and sure that whe

nt that Jacques De Arthenay came round