Thinking that she had made a mistake, that she had not heard aright, Joyce spoke in French.

He answered her timidly.
She had not been mistaken; he was Jules; he had been asleep, he told her, and when he heard her singing, he thought it was his mother calling him as she used to do, and had started up expecting to see her at last.
Where was she?
Did mademoiselle know her?
Surely she must if she knew the song.
It was on the tip of Joyce's tongue to tell him that everybody knew that song; that it was as familiar to the children at home as the chirping of crickets on the hearth or the sight of dandelions in the spring-time.
But some instinct warned her not to say it.

She was glad afterwards, when she found that it was sacred to him, woven in as it was with his one beautiful memory of a home.

It was all he had, and the few words that Joyce's singing had startled from him were all that he remembered of his mother's speech.
If Joyce had happened upon him in any other way, it is doubtful if their acquaintance would have grown very rapidly.

He was afraid of strangers; but coming as she did with the familiar song that was like an old friend, he felt that he must have known her sometime,--that other time when there was always a sweet voice calling, and fireflies twinkled across a dusky lawn.
Joyce was not in a hurry for Marie to come now.