Page:Malot - Nobodys Boy, Crewe-Jones, 1916.djvu/237

 that with your other uncles and aunts. They will take a relation, but not strangers."

I felt there was nothing to say. What she said was only too true. I was not one of the family. I could claim nothing, ask nothing; that would be begging. And yet I loved them all and they all loved me. Aunt Catherine sent us to bed, after telling us that we were to be parted the next day.

Scarcely had we got upstairs than they all crowded round me. Lise clung to me, crying. Then I knew, that in spite of their grief at parting from one another, it was of me that they thought; they pitied me because I was alone. I felt, indeed, then that I was their brother. Suddenly an idea came to me.

"Listen," I said; "even if your aunts and uncles don't want me, I can see that you consider me one of the family."

"Yes, yes," they all cried.

Lise, who could not speak, just squeezed my hand and looked up at me with her big, beautiful eyes.

"Well, I'm a brother, and I'll prove it," I said stoutly.

"There's a job with Pernuit; shall I go over and speak to him to-morrow?" asked Etiennette.

"I don't want a job. If I take a job I shall have to stay in Paris, and I shan't see you again. I'm going to put on my sheepskin and take my harp, and go first to one place and then to another where