exhausted
to be violent, but chattering all the time in rapid, childish sentences.
I could do nothing for her, and I went back to the hearth, where the
cure was now standing, looking sadly at the child in his arms. He bade
me sit down on a tabouret that stood there, and laid his little burden
on my lap.

"The child has no mother, madame," he said; "let him die in a woman's
arms."

I had never seen any one die, not even my father, and I shrank from
seeing it. But the small white face rested helplessly against my arm,
and the blue eyes unclosed for a moment, and gazed into mine, almost
with a smile. Monsieur Laurentie called in Jean and Pierre, and they
knelt before us in silence, broken only by sobs. In the room there were
children's voices talking about their toys, and calling to one another
in shrill, feverish accents. How many deaths such as this was I to
witness?

"Monsieur le Cure!" murmured the failing voice of the little child.

"What is it, my little one?" he said, stooping over him.

"Shall I play sometimes with the little child Jesus?"

The words fell one by one from the feeble lips.

"Yes, _mon cheri_, yes. The holy child Jesus knows what little children
need," answered the cure.

"He is always good and wise," whispered the dying child; "so good, so
wise."

How quickly it was over after that!

CHAPTER THE FIFTEENTH.

A TACITURN FRENCHWOMAN.

Minima was so much worse that night, that Monsieur Laurentie gave me
permission to sit up with Mademoiselle Therese, to watch beside her.
There was a kindly and unselfish disposition about Monsieur le Cure
which it was impossible to resist, or even gainsay. His own share of the
trouble, anxiety, and grief, was so large, that he seemed to stand above
us all, and be naturally our director and ruler. But to-night, when I
begged to stay with Minima, he conceded the point without a word.

Mademoiselle Therese was the most silent woman I ever met. She could
pass a whole day without uttering a word, and did not seem to suffer any
_ennui_ from her silence. In the house she wore always, like the other
inhabitants of the village, men and women, soundless felt socks, which
slipped readily into the wooden _sabots_ used for walking out-of-doors.
I was beginning to learn to walk in _sabots_ myself, for the time was
drawing rapidly near when otherwise I should be barefoot.

With this taciturn Frenchwoman I entered upon my night-watch by Minima,
whose raving no