About the same hour Zalli and 'Tite Poulette were kissing good-night.
"'Tite Poulette, I want you to promise me one thing."
"Well, Maman?"
"If any gentleman should ever love you and ask you to marry,--not
knowing, you know,--promise me you will not tell him you are not white."
"It can never be," said 'Tite Poulette.
"But if it should," said Madame John pleadingly.
"And break the law?" asked 'Tite Poulette, impatiently.
"But the law is unjust," said the mother.
"But it is the law!"
"But you will not, dearie, will you?"
"I would surely tell him!" said the daughter.
When Zalli, for some cause, went next morning to the window, she
started.
"'Tite Poulette!"--she called softly without moving. The daughter came.
The young man, whose idea of propriety had actuated him to this display,
was sitting in the dormer window, reading. Mother and daughter bent a
steady gaze at each other. It meant in French, "If he saw us last
night!"--
"Ah! dear," said the mother, her face beaming with fun--
"What can it be, Maman?"
"He speaks--oh! ha, ha!--he speaks--such miserable French!"
It came to pass one morning at early dawn that Zalli and 'Tite Poulette,
going to mass, passed a cafe, just as--who should be coming out but
Monsieur, the manager of the _Salle de Conde_.
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