e about it.

So Madelon heard nothing more of Monsieur Horace, though she
often, often thought of him, and wondered what he was doing.
He was very busy, very hard-worked; an army-surgeon had no
sinecure in the Crimea in those days, as we know, and it was
perhaps well for the child, who cared more for him than for
any one else in the world, that she knew nothing of his life
at this time, of wintry battle-fields and hospital tents, of
camps and trenches, where, day and night, he had to fight in
his own battle with sickness, and wounds, and death. No news
from the war came to Madelon's ears, no whisper from all the
din and clamour that were filling Europe, penetrated to this
quiet, out-of-the-world, little world in which her lot was
cast. The mighty thunder of the guns before Sebastopol rolled,
echoing, to the north, and roused sunny cities basking in the
south, and stirred a million hearts in the far islands of the
west; but it died away before the vine-covered gate, the
white-washed walls of the little Belgian convent. There life
stole on at an even pace, little asked of it, yielding little
in return, and amongst that peaceful Sisterhood, one little
restless spirit, ever seeking and feeling after what she could
not find, looking in the faces of all around her, if so be
some one could help her, and, with a child's instinct,
rejecting each in turn.

END OF VOL. I.

MY LITTLE LADY.

_COPYRIGHT EDITION_.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

LEIPZIG

BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ

1871.

_The Right of Translation is reserved_.

PART II.

(continued.)

MY LITTLE LADY.

CHAPTER VII.

Fever.

For more than two uneventful years Madelon remained in the
convent; but early in the third spring after her arrival, a
low fever broke out, which for the time completely disturbed
the peaceful, even current of existence there, and, by its
results, altered, as it happened, the whole course of her own
life.

She was between twelve and thirteen then, and had grown into a
slim little maiden, rather tall for her age, with a little
pale face as in old days, but with her wavy brown hair all
braided now, and fastened in long plaits round her head. In
these two years she has become somewhat reconciled to her
convent life; not, indeed, as a permanent arrangement--it never
occurred to her to regard it in that light--but as something
that must be endured till a new future