Alice of Old Vincennes

								

eh, Jean?"
Alice released the hunchback, then laughed gayly and tossed the cluster
of cherries into his hand, whereupon he began munching them voraciously
and talking at the same time.
"I knew I could get them," he boasted; "and see, I have them now." He
hopped around, looking like a species of ill-formed monkey.
Pere Beret came and leaned on the low fence close to Alice. She was
almost as tall as he.
"The sun scorches to-day," he said, beginning to mop his furrowed face
with a red-flowered cotton handkerchief; "and from the look of the sky
yonder," pointing southward, "it is going to bring on a storm. How is
Madame Roussillon to-day?"
"She is complaining as she usually does when she feels extremely well,"
said Alice; "that's why I had to take her place at the oven and bake
pies. I got hot and came out to catch a bit of this breeze. Oh, but you
needn't smile and look greedy, Pere Beret, the pies are not for your
teeth!"
"My daughter, I am not a glutton, I hope; I had meat not two hours
since--some broiled young squirrels with cress, sent me by Rene de
Ronville. He never forgets his old father."
"Oh, I never forget you either, mon pere; I thought of you to-day every
time I spread a crust and filled it with cherries; and when I took out
a pie all brown and hot, the red juice bubbling out of it so good
smelling and tempting, do you know what I said to myself?"
"How could I know, my child?"
"Well, I thought this: 'Not a single bite of that pie does Father Beret
get.'"
"Why so, daughter?"
"Because you said it was bad of me to read novels and told Mother
Roussillon to hide them from me. I've had any amount of trouble about
it."
"Ta, ta! read the good books that I gave you. They will soon kill the
taste for these silly romances."
"I tried," said Alice; "I tried very hard, and it's no use; your books
are dull and stupidly heavy. What do I care about something that a
queer lot of saints did hundreds of years ago in times of plague and
famine? Saints must have been poky people, and it is poky people who
care to read about them, I think. I like reading about brave, heroic
men and beautiful women, and war and love."
Pere Beret looked away with a curious expression in his face, his eyes
half closed.
"And I'll tell you now, Father Beret," Alice went on after a pause, "no
more claret and pies do you get until I can have my own sort of books
back again to read as I please." She stamped her moccasin-shod foot
with decided energy.
The good priest broke into a hearty laugh, and taking off his cap of
grass-straw mechanically scratched his bald head. He looked at the
tall, strong girl before him for a moment or two, and it would have
been hard for the best physiognomist to decide just how much of
approval and how much of disapproval that look really signified.
Although, as Father Beret had said, the sun's heat was violent, causing
that gentle soul to pass his bundled handkerchief with a wiping