Or, to go no further than the Barber's at the
very next door, was there not Corporal
Théophile——

"No," said Mr. The Englishman, glancing
down at the Barber's, "he is not there at
present. There's the child though."

A mere mite of a girl stood on the steps
of the Barber's shop, looking across the Place.
A mere baby, one might call her, dressed in
the close white linen cap which small French
country-children wear (like the Children in
Dutch pictures), and in a frock of homespun
blue, that had no shape except where it was
tied round her little fat throat. So that, being
naturally short and round all over, she looked,
behind, as if she had been cut off at her natural
waist, and had had her head neatly fitted on it.

"There's the child though."

To judge from the way in which the dimpled
hand was rubbing the eyes, the eyes had been
closed in a nap and were newly opened. But
they seemed to be looking so intently across
the Place, that the Englishman looked in the
same direction.

"Oh!" said he, presently, "I thought as
much. The Corporal's there."

The Corporal, a smart figure of a man of
thirty: perhaps a thought under the middle
size, but very neatly made—a sunburnt
Corporal with a brown peaked beard—faced about
at the moment, addressing voluble words of
instruction to the squad in hand. Nothing was
amiss or awry about the Corporal. A lithe and
nimble Corporal, quite complete, from the sparkling
dark eyes under his knowing uniform cap,
to his sparkling white gaiters. The very image
and presentment of a Corporal of his country's
army, in the line of his shoulders, the line of
his waist, the broadest line of his Bloomer
trousers, and their narrowest line at the calf of
his leg.

Mr. The Englishman looked on, and the child
looked on, and the Corporal looked on (but the
last-named at his men), until the drill ended a
few minutes afterwards and the military
sprinkling dried up directly and was gone. Then
said Mr. The Englishman to himself, "Look
here! By George!" And the Corporal, dancing
towards the Barber's with his arms wide open,
caught up the child, held her over his head in a
flying attitude, caught her down again, kissed
her, and made off with her into the Barber's
house.

Now, Mr. The Englishman had had a quarrel
with his erring and disobedient and disowned
daughter, and there was a child in that case too.
Had not his daughter been a child, and had she
not taken angel-flights above his head as this
child had flown above the Corporal's?

"He's a"—National Participled—"fool!"
said the Englishman. And shut his window.

But the windows of the house of Memory, and
the windows of the house of Mercy, are not so
easily closed as windows of glass and wood.
They fly open unexpectedly; they rattle in the
night; they must be nailed up. Mr. The
Englishman had tried nailing them, but had not
driven the nails quite home. So he passed but
a disturbed evening and a worse night.

By nature a good-tempered man? No; very
little gentleness, confounding the quality with
weakness. Fierce and wrathful when crossed?
Very, and stupendously unreasonable. Moody?
Exceedingly so. Vindictive? Well; he had
had scowling thoughts that he would formally
curse his daughter, as he had seen it done on
the stage. But remembering that the real
Heaven is some paces removed from the mock
one in the great chandelier of the Theatre, he
had given that up.

And he had come abroad to be rid of his
repudiated daughter for the rest of his life. And
here he was.

At bottom, it was for this reason more than
for any other that Mr. The Englishman took it
extremely ill that Corporal Théophile should be
so devoted to little Bebelle, the child at the
Barber's shop. In an unlucky moment he had
chanced to say to himself, "Why, confound the
fellow, he is not her father!" There was a sharp
sting in the speech which ran into him suddenly
and put him in a worse mood. So he had
National Participled the unconscious Corporal
with most hearty emphasis, and had made up his
mind to think no more about such a
mountebank.

But, it came to pass that the Corporal was
not to be dismissed. If he had known the most
delicate fibres of the Englishman's mind, instead
of nothing knowing on earth about him, and if
he had been the most obstinate Corporal in the
Grand Army of France instead of being the
most obliging, he could not have planted himself
with more determined immovability plump in
the midst of all the Englishman's thoughts.
Not only so, but he seemed to be always in his
view. Mr. The Englishman had but to look
out of window, to look upon the Corporal with
Little Bebelle. He had but to go for a walk,
and there was the Corporal walking with
Bebelle. He had but to come home again,
disgusted, and the Corporal and Bebelle were at
home before him. If he looked out at his back
windows early in the morning, the Corporal was
in the Barber's back-yard, washing and dressing
and brushing Bebelle. If he took refuge at his
front windows, the Corporal brought his breakfast
out into the Place, and shared it there with
Bebelle. Always Corporal and always Bebelle.
Never Corporal without Bebelle. Never Bebelle
without Corporal.

Mr. The Englishman was not particularly
strong in the French language as a means of
oral communication, though he read it very well.
It is with languages as with people—when you
only know them by sight, you are apt to mistake
them; you must be on speaking terms before
you can be said to have established an
acquaintance.

For this reason, Mr. The Englishman had to
gird up his loins considerably, before he could
bring himself to the point of exchanging ideas
with Madame Bouclet on the subject of this
Corporal and this Bebelle. But Madame Bouclet