child!" said he; "how old are you? Eighteen?"

She shook her head. "Yes, by my certificate of birth I am only eighteen;
but by the sufferings I have endured I am, perhaps, older than you are,
monsieur, despite your white hair. Those who have lived such a life as
I have, are never young; they are old in suffering, even in their
childhood. And if by experience you mean lack of confidence, a knowledge
of good and evil, distrust of everything and everybody, mine, young girl
though I be, will no doubt equal yours." She paused, hesitated for a
moment, and then continued: "But why should I wait for you to question
me? It is neither sincere nor dignified on my part to do so. The person
who claims counsel owes absolute frankness to his adviser. I will speak
to you as if I were communing with my own soul. I will tell you what no
person has ever known--no one, not even Pascal. And believe me, my
past life was full of bitter misery, although you find me here in this
splendid house. But I have nothing to conceal; and if I have cause to
blush, it is for others, not for myself."

Perhaps she was impelled by an irresistible desire to relieve her
overburdened heart, after long years of self-restraint; perhaps she
no longer felt sure of herself, and desired some other advice than
the dictates of her conscience, in presence of the calamity which had
befallen her. At all events, too much engrossed in her own thoughts to
heed the magistrate's surprise, or hear the words he faltered, she rose
from her seat, and, with her hands pressed tightly on her throbbing
brow, she began to tell the story of her life.

"My first recollections," she said, "are of a narrow, cheerless
courtyard, surrounded by grim and massive walls, so high that I could
scarcely see the top of them. At noontime in summer the sun visited one
little corner, where there was a stone bench; but in winter it never
showed itself at all. There were five or six small, scrubby trees, with
moss-grown trunks and feeble branches, which put forth a few yellow
leaves at springtime. We were some thirty children who assembled in
this courtyard--children from five to eight years old, all clad alike in
brown dresses, with a little blue handkerchief tied about our shoulders.
We all wore blue caps on week-days, and white ones on Sundays, with
woollen stockings, thick shoes, and a black ribbon, with a large metal
cross dangling from our necks. Among us moved the good sisters, silent
and sad,