The voice in the canoe behind me ceased. The rain let up. The _slish_, _slish_ of the paddle stopped. The canoe swung sideways to the breeze. I heard the rap, rap, rap of a pipe on the gunwale, and the scratch of a match on the under side of the thwart. "What are you doing, Ferdinand?" "I go to light the pipe, M'sieu'." "Is the story finished?" "But yes—but no—I know not, M'sieu'. As you will." "But what did old Girard say when his daughter broke her engagement and married a man whose eyes were spoiled?" "He said that Leclère could see well enough to work with him in the store." "And what did Vaillantcœur say when he lost his girl?" "He said it was a cursed shame that one could not fight a blind man." "And what did 'Toinette say?" "She said she had chosen the bravest man in Abbéville." "And Prosper—what did he say?" "M'sieu', I know not. He spoke only to 'Toinette." [Illustration] "THE PLAY'S THE THING" By Albert White Vorse ILLUSTRATED BY W. GLACKENS [Illustration] Beatrice was making an angel. She had lifted down the Princess Angelica from the hook whence her royal highness had been suspended since her death a few weeks before, had removed the royal crown and the royal legs, and was turning the royal robe into celestial drapery. Beatrice's conception of a heavenly garment was a white morning wrapper gathered at the bottom, so that when the angel soared head downward—as angels do—its clothes could not fall over its face. Beside Beatrice, who was seated on the floor, lay a pair of wings constructed of muslin tacked upon thin sticks; and about her feet writhed long wires designed to support the angel that evening in its visitation to her father's Italian marionette theatre. It was behind the scenes that I was waiting for her father to come in; and meanwhile I lounged upon the helpers' bench and enjoyed the quaintness of the place.