nothing paternal in the heart of the soldier. It was that of a
hardened bachelor. In former days, in the streets of Algiers, when the
little begging Arabs pursued him with their importunate prayers, the
Captain had often chased them away with blows from his whip; and on
those rare occasions when he had penetrated the nomadic household of
some comrade who was married and the father of a family, he had gone
away cursing the crying babies and awkward children who had touched with
their greasy hands the gilding on his uniform.

But the sight of that particular infirmity, which recalled to him the
sad spectacle of wounds and amputations, touched, on that account, the
old soldier. He felt almost a constriction of the heart at the sight of
that sorry creature, half-clothed in her tattered petticoats and old
chemise, bravely running along behind her geese, her bare foot in the
dust, and limping on her ill-made wooden stump.

The geese, recognizing their home, turned into the poultry-yard, and the
little one was about to follow them when the Captain stopped her with
this question:

"Eh! little girl, what's your name?"

"Pierette, monsieur, at your service," she answered, looking at him with
her great black eyes, and pushing her disordered locks from her
forehead.

"You live in this house, then? I haven't seen you before."

"Yes, I know you pretty well, though, for I sleep under the stairs, and
you wake me up every evening when you come home."

"Is that so, my girl? Ah, well, I must walk on my toes in future. How
old are you?"

"Nine, monsieur, come All-Saints day."

"Is the landlady here a relative of yours?"

"No, monsieur, I am in service."

"And they give you?"

"Soup, and a bed under the stairs."

"And how came you to be lame like that, my poor little one?"

"By the kick of a cow when I was five."

"Have you a father or mother?"

The child blushed under her sunburned skin. "I came from the Foundling
Hospital," she said, briefly. Then, with an awkward courtesy, she passed
limping into the house, and the Captain heard, as she went away on the
pavement of the court, the hard sound of the little wooden leg.

Good heavens! he thought, mechanically walking towards his cafe, that's
not at all the thing. A soldier, at least, they pack off to the
Invalides, with the money from his medal to keep him in tobacco. For an
officer, they fix up a collectorship, and he marries somewhere in the
provinces. But this poor g