ough
to make anybody shudder, and which seemed to be suffering continually, to
judge from the painful manner in which it moved its poor little hands,
which were as thin as a crab's legs; but it lived for all that. She said
she was married, but could not be burdened with the child, so she left it
with some neighbors, who promised to take great care of it, and she went
back to the farm.

But now in her heart, which had been wounded so long, there arose
something like brightness, an unknown love for that frail little creature
which she had left behind her, though there was fresh suffering in that
very love, suffering which she felt every hour and every minute, because
she was parted from her child. What pained her most, however, was the mad
longing to kiss it, to press it in her arms, to feel the warmth of its
little body against her breast. She could not sleep at night; she thought
of it the whole day long, and in the evening, when her work was done, she
would sit in front of the fire and gaze at it intently, as people do
whose thoughts are far away.

They began to talk about her and to tease-her about her lover. They asked
her whether he was tall, handsome and rich. When was the wedding to be
and the christening? And often she ran away to cry by herself, for these
questions seemed to hurt her like the prick of a pin; and, in order to
forget their jokes, she began to work still more energetically, and,
still thinking of her child, she sought some way of saving up money for
it, and determined to work so that her master would be obliged to raise
her wages.

By degrees she almost monopolized the work and persuaded him to get rid
of one servant girl, who had become useless since she had taken to
working like two; she economized in the bread, oil and candles; in the
corn, which they gave to the chickens too extravagantly, and in the
fodder for the horses and cattle, which was rather wasted. She was as
miserly about her master's money as if it had been her own; and, by dint
of making good bargains, of getting high prices for all their produce,
and by baffling the peasants' tricks when they offered anything for sale,
he, at last, entrusted her with buying and selling everything, with the
direction of all the laborers, and with the purchase of provisions
necessary for the household; so that, in a short time, she became.
indispensable to him. She kept such a strict eye on everything about her
that, under her direction, the farm