, and a pond with beautiful birds in it, that
I fed with crumbs.«
    »Can you understand her when she runs on so fast?« asked Mrs. Fairfax.
    I understood her very well, for I had been accustomed to the fluent tongue
of Madame Pierrot.
    »I wish,« continued the good lady, »you would ask her a question or two
about her parents: I wonder if she remembers them?«
    »Adèle,« I inquired, »with whom did you live when you were in that pretty
clean town you spoke of?«
    »I lived long ago with mama; but she is gone to the Holy Virgin. Mama used
to teach me to dance and sing, and to say verses. A great many gentlemen and
ladies came to see mama, and I used to dance before them, or to sit on their
knees and sing to them: I liked it. Shall I let you hear me sing now?«
    She had finished her breakfast, so I permitted her to give a specimen of her
accomplishments. Descending from her chair, she came and placed herself on my
knee; then, folding her little hands demurely before her, shaking back her curls
and lifting her eyes to the ceiling, she commenced singing a song from some
opera. It was the strain of a forsaken lady, who, after bewailing the perfidy of
her lover, calls pride to her aid; desires her attendant to deck her in her
brightest jewels and richest robes, and resolves to meet the false one that
night at a ball, and prove to him by the gaiety of her demeanour how little his
desertion has affected her.
    The subject seemed strangely chosen for an infant singer; but I suppose the
point of the exhibition lay in hearing the notes of love and jealousy warbled
with the lisp of childhood; and in very bad taste that point was: at least I
thought so.
    Adèle sang the canzonette tunefully enough, and with the naïveté of her age.
This achieved, she jumped from my knee and said, »Now, Mademoiselle, I will
repeat you some poetry.«
    Assuming an attitude, she began »La Ligue des Rats; fable de La Fontaine.«
She then declaimed the little piece with an attention to punctuation and
emphasis, a flexibility of voice and an appropriateness of gesture, very unusual
indeed at her age; and which proved she had been carefully trained.
    »Was it your mama who taught you that piece?« I asked.
    »Yes, and she just used to say it in this way: Qu'avez vous donc