of a colonel who died for France, reduced by those monsters to be
their servant! That is where all your pretty color and health have
gone. My Pierrette, what has become of her? what have they done
with her. I see plainly you are not the same, not happy. Oh!
Pierrette, let us go back to Brittany. I can earn enough now to
give you what you need; for you yourself can earn three francs a
day and I can earn four or five; and thirty sous is all I want to
live on. Ah! Pierrette, how I have prayed the good God for you
ever since I came here! I have asked him to give me all your
sufferings, and you all pleasures. Why do you stay with them? why
do they keep you? Your grandmother is more to you than they. They
are vipers; they have taken your gaiety away from you. You do not
even walk as you once did in Brittany. Let us go back. I am here
to serve you, to do your will; tell me what you wish. If you need
money I have a hundred and fifty francs; I can send them up by the
string, though I would like to kiss your dear hands and lay the
money in them. Ah, dear Pierrette, it is a long time now that the
blue sky has been overcast for me. I have not had two hours'
happiness since I put you into that diligence of evil. And when I
saw you the other morning, looking like a shadow, I could not
reach you; that hag of a cousin came between us. But at least we
can have the consolation of praying to God together every Sunday
in church; perhaps he will hear us all the more when we pray
together.

Not good-by, my dear, Pierrette, but _to-night_.

This letter so affected Pierrette that she sat for more than an hour
reading and re-reading and gazing at it. Then she remembered with
anguish that she had nothing to write with. She summoned courage to
make the difficult journey from her garret to the dining-room, where
she obtained pen, paper, and ink, and returned safely without waking
her terrible cousin. A few minutes before midnight she had finished
the following letter:--

My Friend,--Oh! yes, my friend; for there is no one but you,
Jacques, and my grandmother to love me. God forgive me, but you
are the only two persons whom I love, both alike, neither more nor
less. I was too little to know my dear mamma; but you, Jacques,
and my grandmother, and my grandfather,--God grant him heaven, for
he suffered much from his ruin, which was mine,--but you two who
are left, I love you both, u