Aunt Jo’s Scrap-Bag Vol. 1

fine surprise.' He enjoyed the joke like a true boy, and I was glad to
see how well he looked, and how gay he seemed.

'You are better?' I said.

'I truly hope so. The winter was good to me and I cough less. It is a
small hope, but I do not enlarge my fear by a sad face. I yet work and
save a little purse, so that I may not be a heaviness to those who have
the charity to finish me if I fall back and yet die.'

I would not hear of that, and told him he looked as well and happy as if
he had found a fortune.

He laughed, and answered with his fine bow, 'I have. Behold, you come
to make the fête for me. I find also here my friends Joseph and
Napoleon. Poor as mouses of the church, as you say, but brave boys, and
we work together with much gaiety.'

When I asked if he had leisure to be my guide about Paris, for my time
was short and I wanted to see everything; he pranced, and told me he
had promised himself a holiday, and had planned many excursions the most
wonderful, charming, and gay. Then, having settled me at Madame's, he
went blithely away to what I afterwards discovered were very poor
lodgings, across the river.

Next day began the pleasantest fortnight in all my year of travel.