The birthday fell on a day in June. It so happened that Hetty was later than usual in leaving her patients that night; and her purpose had been to go home by the nearest way, and not pass through the Square. The villagers had feared this, and had forestalled her; at the turning where she would have left the main road, she found waiting for her the swiftest-footed urchin in all St. Mary's, little Pierre Michaud. The readiest witted, too, and of the freest tongue, and he was charged to bring Aunt Hibba by the way of the Square, but by no means to tell her the reason. “And if she say me nay, what is it that I am to tell her, then?” urged Pierrre. “Art thou a fool, Pierre?” said his mother, sharply. “Thou'rt ready enough with excuses, I'll warrant, for thy own purposes: invent one now. It matters not, so that thou bring her here.” And Pierre, reassured by this maternal _carte blanche_ for the best lie he could think of, raced away, first tucking securely into a niche of the stone basin the little pot with a red carnation in it which he had brought for his contribution to the birthday _fète_. When Hetty saw Pierre waiting at the corner, she exclaimed: “What, Pierre, loitering here! The sunset is no time to idle. Where are your goats?” “Milked an hour ago, Tantibba,[1] and in the shed,” replied Pierre, with a saucy air of having the best of the argument, “and my mother waits in the Square to speak to thee as thou passest.” “I was not going that way, to-night,” replied Hetty. “I am in haste. What does she wish? Will it not do as well in the morning?” Alarmed at this suggestion, young Pierre made a master-stroke of invention, and replied on the instant: “Nay, Bo Tantibba,[2] that it will not; for it is the little sister of Jean Cochot which has been badly bitten by a fierce dog, and the mother has her there in her arms waiting for thee to dress her wounds. Oh, but the blood doth run! and the little one's cries would pierce thy heart!” And the rascally Pierre pretended to sob. [Footnote 1: “Tante Hibba.”] [Footnote 2: The French Canadians often contract “bonne” and “bon” in this way. “Bo Tantibba” is contraction for “Bonne Tante Hibba.”] “Eh, eh, how happened that?” said Hetty, hurrying on so swiftly towards the Square that even Pierre's brisk little legs could hardly keep up with her. Pierre's inventive faculty came to a halt. “Nay, that I do not know,” he replied; “but the people are all gathered around her, and they all cry out for thee by thy name. There is none like thee, Tantibba, they say, if one has a wound.”