lf in this dress to approach the holy table
frightened and revolted me as much as if I had been sentenced to
drape myself in a winding-sheet. And yet it was the prettiest dress of
all--white muslin beautifully embroidered. It had been ardently coveted
by the other children, and had been given to me as a sort of reward of
merit. And I dared not explain the cause of my unconquerable repugnance.
Who would have understood me? I should only have been accused of undue
sensitiveness and pride, absurd in one of my humble position. I was then
only twelve years old; but no one knew the struggle in my mind save
the old priest, my confessor. I could confess everything to him; he
understood me, and did not reproach me. Still he answered: 'You must
wear this dress, my child, for your pride must be broken. Go--I shall
impose no other penance on you.' I obeyed him, full of superstitious
terror; for it seemed to me that this was a frightful omen which would
bring me misfortune, my whole life through. And I was confirmed in the
dead girl's embroidered dress."

During the five-and-twenty years that he had held the position of
justice of the peace, the magistrate had listened to many confessions,
wrung from wretched souls by stern necessity, or sorrow, but never had
his heart been moved as it now was, by this narrative, told with such
uncomplaining anguish, and in a tone of such sincerity. However she
resumed her story. "The confirmation over, our life became as gloomily
monotonous as before; we read the same pious books and did the same work
at the same hours as formerly. It seemed to me that I was stifling in
this atmosphere. I gasped for breath, and thought that anything would
be preferable to this semblance of existence, which was not real life.
I was thinking of applying for the 'good situation,' which had so often
been mentioned to me, when one morning I was summoned into the steward's
office--a mysterious and frightful place to us children. He himself
was a stout, dirty man, wearing large blue spectacles and a black
silk skullcap; and from morning until night, summer and winter, he sat
writing at a desk behind a little grating, hung with green curtains.
Round the room were ranged the registers, in which our names were
recorded and our appearances described, together with the boxes
containing the articles found upon us, which were carefully preserved
to assist in identifying us should occasion arise. I entered this office
with a thro