Le plus ancien capitaine. — The senior captain

21. Voici monsieur qui est arrivé d'hier. — Hère is a gentleman who arrived yesterday. De, in d'hier, has the same force it has in the phrase d'aujourd'hui en huit, a week from to-day.

1. J'ai de l'amour. — I am in love. Tic-tac is simply an onomatopoeia to imitate the sound of a mill-wheel.

2. Quand retombent . . . d'argent clair. — When the wavy and silverybright stream falls again in little drops. Moire is the word used to dénote a certain watered appearance given to silks and some other stuffs.

3. Ma mie. — My love, my darling, for m' amie, my friend. In old French the masculine forms mon, ton, son, were not used for ma, ta, sa, before a word beginning with a vowel or silent h, but the a was simply elided. M'amie, later written, through ignorance, ma mie, is a remnant of this.

4. De soie . . . joliment. — I would provide her handsomely with silks and nice clothes. Nipper means to supply or fit out with clothes ; as, son père l'a bien nippée avant de la marier, her father supplied her well before lie married her. Joliment, like handsomely, has acquired in farniliar language the meaning of plentifully, abundantly.

5. // faut savoir user le gain. — One should know how to spend his profits.

6. Au clair de la lune, comme chez Pierrot, j'ai rêvé. — An allusion to a very popular French song beginning, Au clair de la lune, mon ami Pierrot.

1. Quel est celui de vous qui ne se rappelle? — Which one of you does not remember 7 In such phrases as this, where the interrogation is merely a strengthened affirmation, ne alone is used instead of ne . . . pas after the interrogatives qui or quel . . . qui.

2. C'en est fait ! — It's ail over ! The idea is : No more reading to-night !

3. S'effacent devant le vague de l'air. — Grow indistinct in the evening dimness.

4. Tout a l'heure. — Just now. This phrase may signify an immédiate past or an immédiate future. It means, literally, quite at the hour; that is, near to the time of speaking, either just before or just after it.

5. La côte est rude. — The hillside is steep, or hard to climb.

6. Vous aurez beau faire. — Ail your exertions will be useless. Ses XXVIIL, 7.

7. Grand'mère. — The apparent elision of an e in the expressions grand'mère, grand7 chose, grand'peine, grand'messe, etc., arises from the fact that anciently French adjectives derived from Latin adjectives of two terminations, as grandis-e, did not add an e mute for the féminine. Later, however, grand became grande before féminine nouns, but not in the above mentioned, and a few other expressions. The printers of the XVI. century, thinking an elision had taken place, inserted the apostrophe, which subséquent usage has sanctioned. D is silent in ail the above combinations.

8. Même au fond de ses terres. — Even in the seclusion or retirement of the country.

9. Qui vous sera plus sensible. — Which will hâve more effect upon you.

10. Qua?id elle vous demandera le soir la confession de votre journée. — When she asks of you, in the evening, an account of your day.