Let go his leg, daughter, I will vouch for him; eh, Jean ?" Alice released the hunchback, then laughed gayly and tossed the cluster of cherries into his hand, whereupon he began munching them voraciously and talking at the same time.
"I knew I could get them," he boasted; "and see, I have them now." 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.