So Yvonne sang to them standing there in the middle of the room, without notes and unaccompanied, and the plaintiveness of the tone and the richness of the voice drew tears from the eyes of the three American girls, while father and mother and aunt were lost in admiration as they gazed at the slender figure in the pale pink gown. Hardly had she finished when Martine, jumping up, impulsively threw her arms about Yvonne's neck. "You must go back with me to the hotel. You must sing to me again. There is a melodeon in the parlor, and I will accompany you. Please, Mr. Babet, can she go back with us?" "It is an honor for Yvonne," he replied politely; "I will ask her mother." "Oh, let me; I will make her say 'Yes'"; and in a few words of rapid French Martine asked that Yvonne might go to the hotel as her guest, to stay to tea. The mother at once assented, and both of the silent women were in a flutter of excitement as they accompanied Yvonne to her bedroom to make some additions to her dress. "Ah," said Alexandre, "she has never been inside the hotel; it will seem very grand to her." Then Yvonne, kissing them all,--the mother, the aunt, and finally the tall father,--turned her back to the cottage, and with beaming face leaned on Martine's arm as Amy led the way. A little distance down the road they saw a man standing by a gate. "Good-day, little one," he called; "where are you going?" "To the hotel, Uncle Placide." "How happens it?" "These American ladies have asked me. I am to have tea." "Ah, well, she is a dear little one, and you are good to her." The whole party had now halted in front of the gate, and these words seemed to be particularly addressed to Amy; for, standing directly in front of her, Placide lifted his hat. "Won't you enter?" he asked pleasantly. "But, uncle," remonstrated Yvonne, "we have no time; we go to the hotel." "Oh, but there is much time; I have been in the States, and I like to talk to the strangers, so enter my garden at least, ladies, to taste of my cherries." There was nothing to do but enter the garden. At the mention of cherries Yvonne indeed had seemed more willing to halt on her way to the hotel, and the others, as Placide thrust upon them liberal handfuls of his great crimson cherries, did not regret the delay. "You are from Boston," he said, after Amy had mentioned her home. "Ah, I worked in Boston, that is, in Lowell, which was the same, and then I came home when I had saved enough to buy a house. It is not so gay here as in Lowell, but it is happier, and I can make a pleasanter living. I never did like the mill, but the pay was good." "What do you do now, Mr. Placide?" asked Amy.