ll, especially,
too, when they despised our humble position!"

The girl drew herself up proudly as she said this.

"Never mind," she went on again presently, "it is all over and done for.
But, still, I believe Armand loved me. How handsome he looked that
last time I saw him when he came to our little cottage to say good-bye,
before he went to join his regiment in Algeria, where his father had got
him ordered off on purpose to separate us. However, perhaps it was only
a boy and girl affection at the best, and would never have lasted; my
heart has not broken, I know, although I thought it would break then;
for, alas! I have since seen sorrow enough to crush me down, even much
more than parting with Armand de la Tour. Fancy, poor darling mamma
gone to her grave, and I, her cherished child, forced to earn my bread
as companion to this haughty old baroness, who thinks me like the dust
under her feet! Ah, it is sad, is it not, doggie?"

The retriever sniffed again, while the blue eyes continued to look down
upon him through a haze of tears; and then, the girl was silent for a
time.

"Heigho, doggie," she exclaimed, after a short pause of reflection,
brushing away the tear drops from her cheeks and shaking her dainty
little head as if she would fain banish all her painful imaginings with
the action, "I must not repine at my lot, for the good Father above has
taken care of me through all my adversity, giving me a comfortable home
when I, an orphan, had none to look after me. And, the good baroness,
too--she may be haughty, but then she is of a very noble family, and has
been brought up like most German ladies of rank to look down upon her
inferiors in position; besides, she is kind to me in her way. I am
pleased that she took it into her head to come off here to seek for her
son, and bring him presents from home in person. Nothing else would
suit her, if you please, on his birthday, although the young baron, I
think, was not over-delighted at his mother coming to hunt for him in
war time, as if he were a little boy--he on the staff of the general! I
fancy he got no little chaff from his brother officers in consequence.
However, `it is an ill wind that blows nobody good,' for the good
baroness being here has been seized with a freak for looking after the
wounded, because the Princess of Alten-Schlossen goes in for that sort
of thing; and thus it is, doggie, that I'm now attending to this poor
fellow here. Though, h