"I don't think I shall call to-morrow."

The next day, however, found her in the attic again. The old woman was
sound asleep, but scarcely had she opened her eyes and recognized
Helene in her black dress sitting on the chair than she exclaimed:

"He has been here--oh, I really don't know what he gave me to take,
but I am as stiff as a stick. We were talking about you. He asked me
all kinds of questions; whether you were generally sad, and whether
your look was always the same. Oh, he's such a good man!"

Her words came more slowly, and she seemed to be waiting to see by the
expression of Helene's face what effect her remarks might have on her,
with that wheedling, anxious air of the poor who are desirous of
pleasing people. No doubt she fancied she could detect a flush of
displeasure mounting to her benefactress's brow, for her huge,
puffed-up face, all eagerness and excitement, suddenly clouded over;
and she resumed, in stammering accents:

"I am always asleep. Perhaps I have been poisoned. A woman in the Rue
de l'Annonciation was killed by a drug which the chemist gave her in
mistake for another."

That day Helene lingered for nearly half an hour in Mother Fetu's
room, hearing her talk of Normandy, where she had been born, and where
the milk was so good. During a silence she asked the old woman
carelessly: "Have you known the doctor a long time?"

Mother Fetu, lying on her back, half-opened her eyes and again closed
them.

"Oh, yes!" she answered, almost in a whisper. "For instance, his
father attended to me before '48, and he accompanied him then."

"I have been told the father was a very good man."

"Yes, but a little cracked. The son is much his superior. When he
touches you you would think his hands were of velvet."

Silence again fell.

"I advise you to do everything he tells you," at last said Helene. "He
is very clever; he saved my daughter."

"To be sure!" exclaimed Mother Fetu, again all excitement. "People
ought to have confidence in him. Why, he brought a boy to life again
when he was going to be buried! Oh, there aren't two persons like him;
you won't stop me from saying that! I am very lucky; I fall in with
the pick of good-hearted people. I thank the gracious Lord for it
every night. I don't forget either of you. You are mingled together in
my prayers. May God in His goodness shield you and grant your every
wish! May He load you with His gifts! May He keep you a place in
Paradise!"

She