"Ah, well, papa can; I have often heard him say, 'Give me only
ten francs, _et je ferai fortune!_' "

There was something at once so droll and so sad about this
child, with her precocious knowledge and ignorant simplicity,
that the lad's honest tender heart was touched with a sudden
pity as he listened to her artless chatter. He was almost glad
when her confidences drifted away to more childlike subjects
of interest, and she told him about her toys, and books, and
pictures, and songs; she could sing a great many songs, she
said, but Horace could not persuade her to let him hear one.

"Why do you talk French?" she said presently; "you speak it so
funnily. I can talk English."

"Can you?" said Horace laughing, for indeed he spoke French
with a fine English accent and idiom. "Let me hear you. Where
did you learn it?"

"Uncle Charles taught me; he is English," she answered,
speaking correctly enough, with a pretty little accent.

"Indeed!" cried Graham. "Your mother was English, then?"

"Yes. Mamma came from England, papa says, and Uncle Charles
almost always talks English to me. I would not let him do it,
only papa wished me to learn."

"And have you any other relations in England?"