little feet against the side of the old well on which she was sitting.

"A wedding! what connection subsists, pray, between the bonds of
matrimony, and a tune on the bagpipes?"

"I don't know what you mean by bagpipes--I only know that when people
get married in the country, they go about with the musicians playing
before them. What you hear yonder is a violin and a _cornemuse_."

"A _cornemuse!_" I repeated. "What's that?"

"Oh, country music. A thing you blow into with your mouth, and play upon
with your fingers, and squeeze under your arm--like this."

"Then it's the same thing, _ma chère_," said I. "A bagpipes and a
_cornemuse_--a _cornemuse_ and bagpipes. Both of them national, popular,
and frightful."

"I'm so fond of music," said Josephine.

Not wishing to object to her tastes, and believing that this observation
related to the music then audible, I made no reply.

"And I have never been to an opera," added she.

I was still silent, though from another motive.

"You will take me one night to the Italiens, or the Opéra Comique, will
you not, Monsieur Basil?" pursued she, determined not to lose her
opportunity.