"Phut! Your tongue is as long as your rake and it goes reaching
down into other folks' affairs, old Etienne! What cares this strange
gentleman for what happened in Tadousac? Go use your key instead of your
tongue. Unlock your little door so that Rosemarie may walk on the cool
grass beside the canal."

The old man grinned and started away.

"We're going out where the birds will sing good night to you," Farr told
the child and lifted her off his knees. But at the door she stopped and
turned to Zelie Dionne, who had not risen.

"Come, play-mamma!"

"I will wait here till you come back, Rosemarie."

But the child was coaxingly insistent, holding out her hand.

"I think it is because she has been so lonely all her life," suggested
Farr. "Now that she has found friends she wants them to be with her
in her little pleasures. May I presume enough to add my invitation to
hers?"

She came and the child walked between them, holding their hands.

"One papa and my play-mamma!" she said, looking up at them in turn.

Mother Maillet came to the kitchen door and waved adieu with her
dish-towel.