mere nothings, for an atom of dust left on a glass globe or
a marble mantelpiece. The handsome ornaments she had once admired
now became odious to her. No matter how she strove to do right, her
inexorable cousins always found something to reprove in whatever she
did. In the course of two years Pierrette never received the slightest
praise, or heard a kindly word. Happiness for her lay in not being
scolded. She bore with angelic patience the morose ill-humor of the two
celibates, to whom all tender feelings were absolutely unknown, and who
daily made her feel her dependence on them.

Such a life for a young girl, pressed as it were between the two chops
of a vise, increased her illness. She began to feel violent internal
distresses, secret pangs so sudden in their attacks that her strength
was undermined and her natural development arrested. By slow degrees and
through dreadful, though hidden sufferings, the poor child came to the
state in which the companion of her childhood found her when he sang to
her his Breton ditty at the dawn of the October day.

VI. AN OLD MAID'S JEALOUSY

Before we relate the domestic drama which the coming of Jacques Brigaut
was destined to bring about in the Rogron family it is best to explain
how the lad came to be in Provins; for he is, as it were, a somewhat
mute personage on the scene.

When he ran from the house Brigaut was not only frightened by
Pierrette's gesture, he was horrified by the change he saw in his little
friend. He could scarcely recognize the voice, the eyes, the gestures
that were once so lively, gay, and withal so tender. When he had gained
some distance from the house his legs began to tremble under him; hot
flushes ran down his back. He had seen the shadow of Pierrette, but not
Pierrette herself! The lad climbed to the Upper town till he found a
spot from which he could see the square and the house where Pierrette
lived. He gazed at it mournfully, lost in many thoughts, as though he
were entering some grief of which he could not see the end. Pierrette
was ill; she was not happy; she pined for Brittany--what was the matter
with her? All these questions passed and repassed through his heart and
rent it, revealing to his own soul the extent of his love for his little
adopted sister.

It is extremely rare to find a passion existing between two children of
opposite sexes. The charming story of Paul and Virginia does not, any
more than this of Pierrette and Bri