Part 31

He wished to answer, but stammered and stood confused before her.

She resumed:

“You understand, do you not, that it will not do for me to be talked about again.”

“What does that matter to me, if you will be my wife!”

No voice replied to him, but he believed that he heard in the shadow of the room the sound of a falling body. He entered quickly; and Simon, who had gone to bed, distinguished the sound of a kiss and some words that his mother murmured softly. Then, all at once, he found himself lifted up by the hands of his friend, who, holding him at the length of his herculean arms, exclaimed:

“You will tell them, your schoolmates, that your papa is Philip Remy, the blacksmith, and that he will pull the ears of all who do you any harm.”

On the morrow, when the school was full and lessons were about to begin, little Simon stood up, quite pale with trembling lips:

“My papa,” said he in a clear voice, “is Philip Remy, the blacksmith, and he has promised to pull the ears of all who does me any harm.”

This time no one laughed, for he was very well known, was Philip Remy, the blacksmith, and was a papa of whom any one in the world would have been proud.