d been a little too violent.

"I am not myself to-day, I'm ill," the child resumed. "You must not
frighten me."

Monsieur Rambaud displayed the greatest solicitude. What was the
matter with his poor darling? He only sat down, relieved, when Helene
had signed to him that the child was in her dismals, as Rosalie was
wont to say. A call from him in the daytime was a rare occurrence, and
so he at once set about explaining the object of his visit. It
concerned some fellow-townsman of his, an old workman who could find
no employment owing to his advanced years, and who lived with his
paralytic wife in a tiny little room. Their wretchedness could not be
pictured. He himself had gone up that morning to make a personal
investigation. Their lodging was a mere hole under the tiles, with a
swing window, through whose broken panes the wind beat in. Inside,
stretched on a mattress, he had found a woman wrapped in an old
curtain, while the man squatted on the floor in a state of
stupefaction, no longer finding sufficient courage even to sweep the
place.

"Oh! poor things, poor things!" exclaimed Helene, moved to tears.

It was not the old workman who gave Monsieur Rambaud any uneasiness.
He would remove him to his own house and find him something to do. But
there was the wife with palsied frame, whom the husband dared not
leave for a moment alone, and who had to be rolled up like a bundle;
where could she be put? what was to be done with her?

"I thought of you," he went on. "You must obtain her instant admission
to an asylum. I should have gone straight to Monsieur Deberle, but I
imagined you knew him better and would have greater influence with
him. If he would be kind enough to interest himself in the matter, it
could all be arranged to-morrow."

Trembling with pity, her cheeks white, Jeanne listened to the tale.

"Oh, mamma!" she murmured with clasped hands, "be kind--get the
admission for the poor woman!"

"Yes, yes, of course!" said Helene, whose emotion was increasing. "I
will speak to the doctor as soon as I can; he will himself take every
requisite step. Give me their names and the address, Monsieur
Rambaud."

He scribbled a line on the table, and said as he rose: "It is
thirty-five minutes past two. You would perhaps find the doctor at
home now."

She had risen at the same time, and as she looked at the clock a
fierce thrill swept through her frame. In truth it was already
thirty-five minutes past two, and the