cian. I liked to find for these suffering
children a more comfortable position when they were weary; or to bathe
their burning heads with some cool lotion; or to give the parched lips
the _titane_ Mademoiselle Therese prepared. Even the delirium of these
little creatures was but a babbling about playthings, and _fetes_, and
games. Minima, whose fever took faster hold of her day after day,
prattled of the same things in English, only with sad alternations of
moaning over our poverty.

It was probably these lamentations of Minima which made me sometimes
look forward with dread to the time when this season of my life should
be ended. I knew it could be only for a little while, an interlude, a
brief, passing term, which must run quickly to its conclusion, and bring
me face to face again with the terrible poverty which the child bemoaned
in words no one could understand but myself. Already my own appearance
was changing, as Mademoiselle Therese supplied the place of my clothing,
which wore out with my constant work, replacing it with the homely
costume of the Norman village. I could not expect to remain here when my
task was done. The presbytery was too poor to offer me a shelter when I
could be nothing but a burden in it. This good cure, who was growing
fonder of me every day, and whom I had learned to love and honor, could
not be a father to me as he was to his own people. Sooner or later there
would come an hour when we must say adieu to one another, and I must go
out once again to confront the uncertain future.

But for the present these fears were very much in the background, and I
only felt that they were lurking there, ready for any moment of
depression. I was kept too busy with the duties of the hour to attend to
them. Some of the children died, and I grieved over them; some recovered
sufficiently to be removed to a farm on the brow of the hill, where the
air was fresher than in the valley. There was plenty to do and to think
of from day to day.

CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH.

OUTCAST PARISHIONERS.

"Madame." said Monsieur Laurentie; one morning, the eighth that I had
been in the fever-smitten village, "you did not take a promenade
yesterday."

"Not yesterday, monsieur."

"Nor the day before yesterday?" he continued.

"No, monsieur," I answered; "I dare not leave Minima, I fear she is
going to die."

My voice failed me as I spoke to him. I was sitting down for a few
minutes on a low seat, between Minima