green the afternoon
before Christmas. Little Ninon was a peasant's daughter, and she
was only fourteen.  If she were petite, she was also piquant and
pretty--"

"Very good, very good," cried a chorus of voices; and a round of
applause stimulated the narrator.

"Until this occasion, Ninon had always been kept at home as a
child; but, after interminable coaxings, she obtained her mother's
permission to go to the fete. Now her mother was a widow, and
it so happened that she could not go with her daughter, and after
she had given her consent had not one whom she could send with her
child as a protector. But Ninon was in such  that her mother
had not the  to take back her promise.

"'Now, mother, tell me what shall I say when the boys, and perhaps
some of the very young men, ask me to dance with them?'

"'Say, I'm only a little child who have come to see. Go thy ways.'

"'But suppose they don't go their ways,' pouted Ninon.

"'Go thine then, and come home.'

"'Now, mother dear, am I not almost old enough to have a lover