"Is it good?" said the Frenchwoman when Nettie's bowl was half empty.
"It's so good!" said Nettie. "I didn't know I was so hungry."
"Now you will not feel the cold so," said the Frenchwoman, "and you will go back quicker. Do you like my _riz-au-gras_?"
The Frenchwoman laughed, and made Nettie say it over till she could pronounce the words. "Now you like it," she said; "that is a French dish. Do you think Mrs. Mat'ieson would like it?"
"I am sure she would!" said Nettie. "But I don't know how to make it."
"You shall come here and I will teach it to you. And now you shall carry a little home to your mother and ask her if she will do the honour to a French dish to approve it. It do not cost anything. I cannot sell much bread the winters; I live on what cost me nothing."
While saying this, Mme. Auguste had filled a little pail with the _riz-au-gras_, and put a couple of her rolls along with it. "It must have the French bread," she said; and she gave it to Nettie, who looked quite cheered up, and very grateful.
"You are a good little girl!" she said. "How keep you always your face looking so happy? There is always one little streak of sunshine here"--drawing her finger across above Nettie's eyebrows--"and another here,"--and her finger passed over the line of Nettie's lips.
"That's because I _am_ happy, Mrs. August."
"What makes you so happy always? you was just the same in the cold winter out there, as when you was eating my _riz-au-gras_. Now me, I am cross in the cold, and not happy."
But the Frenchwoman saw a deeper light come into Nettie's eyes as she answered, "It is because I love the Lord Jesus, Mrs. August, and he makes me happy."
"_You?_" said Madame. "My child!--What do you say, Nettie? I think not I have heard you right."
"Yes, Mrs. August, I am happy because I love the Lord Jesus. I know he loves me, and he will take me to be with him."
"Not just yet," said the Frenchwoman, "I hope! Well, I wish I was so happy as you, Nettie. Good-bye!"
Nettie ran home, more comforted by her good supper, and more thankful to the goodness of God in giving it, and happy in the feeling of his goodness than can be told. And very, very glad she was of that little tin pail in her hand she knew her mother needed. Mrs. Mathieson had time to eat the rice broth before her husband came in.