heart The want and
suffering of which he spoke were more terrible than anything she had ever
heard of--it had been nothing like this in the village. Oh! no, no. As
she thought of it there was such a look in her dark eyes as almost
startled Dr. Norris several times when he glanced at her, but as he did
not know the particulars of her life with her aunt and the strange
training she had had, he could not possibly have guessed what was going
on in her mind, and how much effect his stories were having. The
beautiful little face touched him very much, and the pretty French accent
with which the child spoke seemed very musical to him, and added a great
charm to the gentle, serious answers she made to the remarks he addressed
to her. He could not help seeing that something had made little
Mademoiselle Elizabeth a pathetic and singular little creature, and he
continually wondered what it was.

"Do you think she is a happy child?" he asked Monsieur de Rochemont when
they were alone together over their cigars and wine.

"Happy?" said Uncle Bertrand, with his light smile. "She has been taught,
my friend, that to be happy upon earth is a crime. That was my good
sister's creed. One must devote one's self, not to happiness, but
entirely to good works. I think I have told you that she, this little
one, desires to give all her fortune to the poor. Having heard you this
evening, she will wish to bestow it upon your Five Points."

When, having retired from the room with a grave and stately little
obeisance to her uncle and his guest, Elizabeth had gone upstairs, it had
not been with the intention of going to bed. She sent her maid away and
knelt before her altar for a long time.

"The Saints will tell me what to do," she said. "The good Saints, who are
always gracious, they will vouchsafe to me some thought which will
instruct me if I remain long enough at prayer."

She remained in prayer a long time. When at last she arose from her knees
it was long past midnight, and she was tired and weak, but the thought
had not been given to her.

But just as she laid her head upon her pillow it came. The ornaments
given to her by her Aunt Clotilde somebody would buy them. They were her
own--it would be right to sell them--to what better use could they be
put? Was it not what Aunt Clotilde would have desired? Had she not told
her stories of the good and charitable who had sold the clothes from
their bodies that the miserable might be helped? Ye