like some seraphic
instrument revealing the secrets of the future. When Monsieur Martener
praised her for having faithfully followed a harsh prescription the
little angel replied, and with what a glance--!

"I want to live, dear Monsieur Martener; but less for myself than for
my grandmother, for my Brigaut, for all of you who will grieve at my
death."

The first time she went into the garden on a beautiful sunny day in
November attended by all the household, Madame Auffray asked her if she
was tired.

"No, now that I have no sufferings but those God sends I can bear all,"
she said. "The joy of being loved gives me strength to suffer."

That was the only time (and then vaguely) that she ever alluded to her
horrible martyrdom at the Rogrons, whom she never mentioned, and of whom
no one reminded her, knowing well how painful the memory must be.

"Dear Madame Auffray," she said one day at noon on the terrace, as
she gazed at the valley, warmed by a glorious sun and colored with the
glowing tints of autumn, "my death in your house gives me more happiness
than I have had since I left Brittany."

Madame Auffray whispered in her sister Martener's ear:--

"How she would have loved!"

In truth, her tones, her looks gave to her words a priceless value.

Monsieur Martener corresponded with Doctor Bianchon, and did nothing of
importance without his advice. He hoped in the first place to regular
the functions of nature and to draw away the abscess in the head through
the ear. The more Pierrette suffered, the more he hoped. He gained some
slight success at times, and that was a great triumph. For several days
Pierrette's appetite returned and enabled her to take nourishing food
for which her illness had given her a repugnance; the color of her skin
changed; but the condition of her head was terrible. Monsieur Martener
entreated the great physician his adviser to come down. Bianchon came,
stayed two days, and resolved to undertake an operation. To spare the
feelings of poor Martener he went to Paris and brought back with him the
celebrated Desplein. Thus the operation was performed by the greatest
surgeon of ancient or modern times; but that terrible diviner said to
Martener as he departed with Bianchon, his best-loved pupil:--

"Nothing but a miracle can save her. As Horace told you, caries of the
bone has begun. At her age the bones are so tender."

The operation was performed at the beginning of March, 1828. During
all