“Well, that happens naturally sometimes,” said the philosophic Paichoux. “I’ve seen it over and over in common breeds. It’s an accident, but it happens. In a litter of curs, there’ll be often one stylish dog; the puppies’ll grow up together; but there’ll be one different from the others, and the handsomest one may not be the smartest, but he’ll be the master, and get the best of everything. Now look at that black filly of mine; where did she get her style? Not from either father or mother. It’s an accident—an accident,—and it may be with children as it is with puppies and colts, and that little one may be an example of it.”
“Nonsense, Paichoux!” said Tante Modeste sharply. “There’s no accident about it; there’s a mystery, and Madame Jozain doesn’t tell the truth when she talks about the child. I can feel it even when she doesn’t contradict herself. The other day I stepped in there to buy Marie a ribbon, and I spoke about the child! in fact, I asked which side she came from, and madame answered very curtly that her father was a Jozain. Now this is what set me to thinking: To-day, when Pepsie was putting a clean frock on the child, I noticed that her under-clothing was marked ‘J. C.’ Remember, ‘J. C.’ Well, the day that I was in madame’s shop, she said to me in her smooth way that she’d heard of Marie’s intended marriage, and that she had something superior, exquisite, that she’d like to show me. Then she took a box out of her armoire, and in it were a number of the most beautiful sets of linen I ever saw, batiste as fine as cobwebs and real lace. ‘They’re just what you need for mademoiselle,’ she said in her wheedling tone; ‘since she’s going to marry into such a distinguished family, you’ll want to give her the best.’
“‘They’re too fine for my daughter,’ I answered, as I turned them over and examined them carefully. They were the handsomest things!—and on every piece was a pretty little embroidered monogram, J. C.; mind you, the same as the letters on the child’s clothes. Then I asked her right out, for it’s no use mincing matters with such a woman, where in the world she got such lovely linen.
“‘They belonged to my niece,’ she said, with a hypocritical sigh, ‘and I’d like to sell them; they’re no good to the child; before she’s grown up they’ll be spoiled with damp and mildew; I’d rather have the money to educate her.’
“‘But the monogram; it’s a pity they’re marked J. C.’ I repeated the letters over to see what she would say, and as I live she was ready for me.
“‘No, madame; it’s C. J.—Claire Jozain; her name was Claire, you’re looking at it wrong, and really it don’t matter much how the letters are placed, for they’re always misleading, you never know which comes first; and, dear Madame Paichoux,’—she deared me, and that made me still more suspicious,—‘don’t you see that the C might easily be mistaken for G?—and no one will notice the J, it looks so much like a part of the vine around it. I’ll make them a bargain if you’ll take them.’
“I told her no, that they were too fine for my girl; par exemple! as if I’d let Mariet wear stolen clothes, perhaps.”
“Hush, hush, Modeste!” exclaimed Paichoux; “you might get in the courts for that.”
“Or get her there, which would be more to the purpose. I’d like to know when and where that niece died, and who was with her; besides, the child says such strange things, now and then, they set one to thinking. To-day when I was taking her home, she began to talk about the ranch, and her papa and mama. Sometimes I think they’ve stolen her.”
“Oh, Modeste! The woman isn’t as bad as that; I’ve never heard anything against her,” interrupted the peaceable Paichoux, “she’s got a bad son, it’s true. That boy, Raste, is his father over again. Why, I hear he’s already been in the courts; but she’s all right as far as I know.”