"
"Another child," replied Cecile; "had old Mme. Malet another child?
and did he die?"
"No, he didn't die. He was lost long, long ago. One day he ran away,
it was when they lived, my good Jean and his mother, in the Pyrenees,
and little Alphonse ran out, and they fear someone stole him, for
they never got tidings of him since. He was a bright little lad, and,
being her youngest, he was quite a Benjamin to my poor mother-in-law.
"Oh! she did fret for him bitterly hard, and they--she and my good
Jean--spent all the money they had, looking for him. But this
happened years ago and I think my mother-in-law was beginning to take
comfort in my little son, our bonnie young Jean, when, Cecile, that
boy you call Joe upset her again. He could not have been her son, for
if he was, he'd never have run away. Besides, he did not resemble the
little lad with black curls she used to talk to me about. But he ran
up to her, doubtless mistaking her for someone else, and called her
his mother, and said he was her lost Alphonse.
"Then before she could open her lips to reply to him, he darted out
of the little hut, and was lost in the darkness, and not a trace of
him have we come across since, and I tell my poor mother-in-law that
he isn't her child. But she doesn't believe me, Cecile, and 'tis
about him she is so sad all day."
"But he is her child, he is indeed her child," answered Cecile, who
had listened breathless to this tale. "Oh! I know why he ran away.
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