"GOOD-NIGHT, BABETTE!"

"Si vieillesse pouvait !—"

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

MONSIEUR VIEUXBOIS.

BABETTE.

M. VIEUXBOIS (turning querulously).
AY of my life! Where can she get?
BABETTE! I say! BABETTE!—BABETTE!

DAY

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),
Angels all glorious

Came to my Bed;
Angels in blue and white
Crowned on the Head."

M. VIEUXBOIS (drowsily)

...

"She was an Angel".. "Once she laughed ". What, was I dreaming?

M. VIEUXBOIS (murmuring).

Ah, PAUL!... old PAUL!... EULALIE too! And ROSE... And O! "the sky so blue!"

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).

"How I forget!"

66

"I am so old!"

Good-night, BABETTE!

THE DRAMA OF THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW

IN THREE ACTS, WITH A PROLOGUE

"A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus, And his love Thisbe; very tragical mirth." -MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM.

PROLOGUE.

"WELL,

room,

Where I used this expression,
Wore the severe official gloom

Attached to that profession;
Rendered severer by a bald
And skinless Gladiator,
Whose raw robustness first appalled
The entering spectator.

I must wait!" The Doctor's