"But tell me more," Alice insisted; "I want to know about what you
saw in the great towns--in the fine houses--how the ladies looked,
how they acted--what they said--the dresses they wore--how--"

"Ciel! you will split my ears, child; can't you fill my pipe and
bring it to me with a coal on it? Then I'll try to tell you what I
can," he cried, assuming a humorously resigned air. "Perhaps if I
smoke I can remember everything."

Alice gladly ran to do what he asked. Meantime Jean was out on the
gallery blowing a flute that M. Roussillon had brought him from
Quebec.

The pipe well filled and lighted apparently did have the effect to
steady and encourage M. Roussillon's memory; or if not his memory,
then his imagination, which was of that fervid and liberal sort
common to natives of the Midi, and which has been exquisitely
depicted by the late Alphonse Daudet in Tartarin and Bompard. He
leaned far back in a strong chair, with his massive legs stretched
at full length, and gazed at the roof-poles while he talked.

He sympathized fully, in his crude way, with Alice's lively
curiosity, and his affection for her made him anxious to appease
her longing after news from the great outside world. If the sheer
truth must come out, however, he knew precious little about that
world, especially the polite part of it in which thrived those
femininities so dear to the heart of an isolated and imaginative
girl. Still, as he, too, lived in Arcadia, there was no great
effort involved when he undertook to blow a dreamer's flute.