Descendez a l'ombre,
Ma Jolie blonde.


Only you are _petite brune_, there is nothing _blonde_ about you,
_mignonne_, my dear mademoiselle, I should say if I were with you
of course as I used to do. But surely I _am_ with you and those
lights are the floating cribs I see, and your voice it is that sings,
and presently the boatmen hear and they turn and move their hands
and join in--Now all together,


Descendez a l'ombre,


* * * * *

It was like you, Hortense, to come all this way. How did you manage
it, manage to cross that great water all alone? My poor girl did you
grow tired of _Le bon Pere_ at last and of the Martyrs and the
Saints and the Jesuit Fathers? But you have got your amulet on still
I hope. That is right, for there is a chance--there is a chance of
these things proving blessings after all to good girls, and you were
a good girl Hortense. You will not mind my calling you Hortense,
will you? When we are in _Le Bas Canada_ again, in your own
seignieury, it will be "Madamoiselle," I promise you. You say it is
a strange pillow, Hortense? Books, my girl, and manuscripts; hard
but not so hard as London stones and London hearts. Do you know I