"
He hopped around, looking like a species of ill-formed monkey.
Pere Beret came and leaned on the low fence close to Alice. She
was almost as tall as he.
"The sun scorches to-day," he said, beginning to mop his furrowed
face with a red-flowered cotton handkerchief; "and from the look
of the sky yonder," pointing southward, "it is going to bring on a
storm. How is Madame Roussillon to-day?"
"She is complaining as she usually does when she feels extremely
well," said Alice; "that's why I had to take her place at the oven
and bake pies. I got hot and came out to catch a bit of this
breeze. Oh, but you needn't smile and look greedy, Pere Beret, the
pies are not for your teeth!"
"My daughter, I am not a glutton, I hope; I had meat not two hours
since--some broiled young squirrels with cress, sent me by Rene de
Ronville. He never forgets his old father."
"Oh, I never forget you either, mon pere; I thought of you to-day
every time I spread a crust and filled it with cherries; and when
I took out a pie all brown and hot, the red juice bubbling out of
it so good smelling and tempting, do you know what I said to
myself?"
"How could I know, my child?"
"Well, I thought this: 'Not a single bite of that pie does Father
Beret get.'"
"Why so, daughter?"
"Because you said it was bad of me to read novels and told Mother
Roussillon to hide them from me.
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