ed behind some trees, saying: "Courage,
memory, and hope!"

All this had passed so rapidly that the young workwoman had no time
to speak or move; tears, sweet tears, flowed abundantly down her pale
cheeks. For a young lady, like Adrienne de Cardoville, to treat her as a
sister, to kiss her hand, to tell her that she was proud to resemble
her in heart--her, a poor creature, vegetating in the lowest abyss
of misery--was to show a spirit of fraternal equality, divine, as the
gospel words.

There are words and impressions which make a noble soul forget years of
suffering, and which, as by a sudden flash, reveal to it something of
its own worth and grandeur. Thus it was with the hunchback. Thanks to
this generous speech, she was for a moment conscious of her own value.
And though this feeling was rapid as it was ineffable, she clasped
her hands and raised her eyes to heaven with an expression of fervent
gratitude; for, if the poor sempstress did not practise, to use the
jargon of ultramontane cant, no one was more richly endowed with that
deep religious sentiment, which is to mere dogmas what the immensity of
the starry heaven is to the vaulted roof of a church.

Five minutes after quitting Mdlle. de Cardoville, Mother Bunch, having
left the garden without being perceived, reascended to the first story,
and knocked gently at the door of the press-room. A sister came to open
the door to her.

"Is not Mdlle. Florine, with whom I came, still here, sister?" asked the
needlewoman.

"She could not wait for you any longer. No doubt, you have come from our
mother the superior?"

"Yes, yes, sister," answered the sempstress, casting down her eyes;
"would you have the goodness to show me the way out?"

"Come with me."

The sewing-girl followed the nun, trembling at every step lest she
should meet the superior, who would naturally have inquired the cause of
her long stay in the convent.

At length the inner gate closed upon Mother Bunch. Passing rapidly
across the vast court-yard and approaching the porter's lodge, to ask
him to let her out, she heard these words pronounced in a gruff voice:
"It seems, old Jerome, that we are to be doubly on our guard to-night.
Well, I shall put two extra balls in my gun. The superior says we are to
make two rounds instead of one."

"I want no gun, Nicholas," said the other voice; "I have my sharp
scythe, a true gardener's weapon--and none the worse for that."

Feeling an involuntary unea