the song continued.

I felt a great pity for the poor old woman still wandering about in the
cold night, while we were snug and warm at home; but mingled with that
feeling there was another sentiment so confused and vague that I give
it too much importance, even though I touch upon it never so lightly.
It was this: I had a sort of restless curiosity to see those squalid
streets through which the old peddler went so bravely, and to which I
had never been taken. These streets, that I saw from the distance,
were deserted in the day time, but there in the evening, from time
immemorial, sailors made merry; sometimes the sound of their singing was
so loud that we could hear it as we sat in our parlor.

What could be going on there? What was the nature of that fun, the echo
of whose din we heard so distinctly? How did they amuse themselves,
these sailors, who had but newly come over the sea from distant
countries where the sun was always hot? What life was careless and
simple and free as theirs!

My emotions lose their force when I endeavor to interpret them, and my
words seem very inept. But I know that seeds of trouble, and seeds of
hope (to develop how I could not guess) were at about this time planted
in my little being. When, with my cakes in my hand, I re-entered the
parlor where the family sat talking together quietly, I felt for a
quick, almost inappreciable, moment suffocated and imprisoned.

At half-past nine, because of me seldom later, tea was served, and with
it we had thin slices of bread, spread with the most delicious butter,
and cut with the care one gives to very few things in these days.