"GOOD-NIGHT, BABETTE!”

"Si vieillesse pouvait !—"

SCENE. A small neat Room. In a high Voltaire Chair sits a white-haired old Gentleman.

MONSIEUR VIEUXBOIS.

ВАВЕТТЕ.

DAY

M. VIEUXBOIS (turning querulously).

of my BABETTE! I say! BABETTE!--BABETTE!

life! Where can she get?

BABETTE (entering hurriedly).

Coming, M'sieu'! If M'sieu' speaks

So loud, he won't be well for weeks!

M. VIEUXBOIS.

Where have you been?

BABETTE.

Why, M'sieu' knows :

April! Ville d'Avray! . . . Ma'am'selle ROSE!

...

M. VIEUXBOIS.

Ah! I am old, and I forget.

Was the place growing green, Babette?

BABETTE.

But of a greenness !—yes, M'sieu'!
And then the sky so blue!- -so blue!
And when I dropped my immortelle,,
How the birds sang!

(Lifting her apron to her eyes.)

This poor Ma'am'selle!

M. VIEUXBOIS.

You're a good girl, BABETTE, but she,

She was an Angel, verily.

Sometimes I think I see her yet

Stand smiling by the cabinet;

And once, I know, she peeped and laughed

Betwixt the curtains.

Where's the draught?

(She gives him a cup.)

Now I shall sleep, I think, BABETTE ;--
Sing me your Norman chansonnette.

BABETTE (sings).

"Once at the Angelus

(Ere I was dead),

BABETTE (showing the empty cup).

The draught, M'sieu'?

BABETTE (sings).

"One had my Mother's eyes,

Wistful and mild;

One had my Father's face;

One was a Child:

All of them bent to me,-
Bent down and smiled!"

(He is asleep!)

M. VIEUXBOIS (almost inaudibly).

"I am so old!"

"How I forget!"
"Good-night, BABETTE!

EPILOGUE

HEIGHO! how chill the evenings get !

Good-night, NINON!-good-night, NINETTE! Your little Play is played and finished;—

Go back, then, to your Cabinet!

LOYAL, L'ÉTOILE! no more to-day!

Alas! they heed not what we say:

They smile with ardour undiminished; But we,- —we are not always gay!