"Oh, Martine!" "There, there, I know just how it is. It's so in our family; I have an elder brother, and he has always been held up as a model, although, between you and me, he's far from perfect. It just keeps me busy, showing him his faults. So, Miss Prissie, if you are too old-maidish I'll have to show you yours." Priscilla was helpless under Martine's rapid fire of words. In her moments of reflection it surprised her that a girl whom six months before she had not even heard of, should now venture to say things to her that no one in her own family would dare to say. A little later, Amy and Priscilla and Martine set out to see the loom that made the fine quilts. Priscilla had desired to postpone the visit until next morning. "It would be better to rest now." "I'm tired resting," protested Martine. "Unless we move on, I will go indoors, and play doleful things on the melodeon. You don't know what I am when I'm melancholy." Unmoved by Martine, when Amy showed that it was better not to spend the whole afternoon listlessly, Priscilla objected no longer. The Babet house was a ten minutes' walk up the street. After mistaking one or two houses for the one they were seeking, their third trial brought a tall, long-bearded man to the door who answered to the name of Alexandre Babet. "We hear that some one here--your wife, perhaps,--makes those beautiful quilts." "Oh, yes," responded Alexandre, in fair English. "They are good quilts, and we have a loom." Martine pinched Priscilla's arm. "I'm disappointed; I thought that he'd speak French." "Come in, come in;" and Alexandre showed them into the neatest of sitting-rooms,--neat, but painfully bare. It was brightened, to be sure, by one or two gay pictures of saints in brilliant-colored garments, and by two or three geraniums in flower on the window. But the wooden floor was unpainted, and on it was only one rug, and there was little furniture besides the high dresser and a long table. Alexandre went off to summon his wife, and soon she came in from the kitchen, accompanied by another, whom Alexandre introduced as his sister. The girls soon became embarrassed under the piercing gaze of their black eyes. The women wore dark calico gowns with little shawls over their shoulders, and their _couvre-chefs_ were bound closely to their heads. Neither of them understood English, nor spoke it. But Alexandre proved as talkative as any two women. Moreover, he occasionally translated his own words into French, and in the same way made the women understand what the young American girls said--to the great amusement of Amy and Martine. Priscilla sat solemnly through the conversation, as if she found something pathetic in the aspect of the women. During a moment of silence, when the room seemed rather close and uncomfortable,--for the windows were shut, and the blinds were drawn,--there came a gentle tapping on the door. Madame Babet sprang to her feet.