ht only lie a little softer there, for
she was always grumbling about the pallet-bed that we both used to
sleep upon. You could not possibly imagine how it hurts one's soul to be
repulsed by every one, to receive nothing but hard words and looks that
cut you to the heart, just as if they were so many stabs of a knife. I
have known poor old people who were so used to these things that they
did not mind them a bit, but I was not born for that sort of life. A
'No' always made me cry. Every evening I came back again more unhappy
than ever, and only felt comforted when I had said my prayers. In all
God's world, in fact, there was not a soul to care for me, no one to
whom I could pour out my heart. My only friend was the blue sky. I have
always been happy when there was a cloudless sky above my head. I used
to lie and watch the weather from some nook among the crags when the
wind had swept the clouds away. At such times I used to dream that I was
a great lady. I used to gaze into the sky till I felt myself bathed in
the blue; I lived up there in thought, rising higher and higher yet,
till my troubles weighed on me no more, and there was nothing but
gladness left.

"But to return to my 'love affairs.' I must tell you that the
innkeeper's spaniel had a dear little puppy, just as sensible as a human
being; he was quite white, with black spots on his paws, a cherub of a
puppy! I can see him yet. Poor little fellow, he was the only creature
who ever gave me a friendly look in those days; I kept all my tidbits
for him. He knew me, and came to look for me every evening. How he used
to spring up at me! And he would bite my feet, he was not ashamed of my
poverty; there was something so grateful and so kind in his eyes that it
brought tears into mine to see it. 'That is the one living creature that
really cares for me!' I used to say. He slept at my feet that winter.
It hurt me so much to see him beaten, that I broke him of the habit of
going into houses, to steal bones, and he was quite contented with my
crusts. When I was unhappy, he used to come and stand in front of me,
and look into my eyes; it was just as if he said, 'So you are sad, my
poor Fosseuse?'

"If a traveler threw me some halfpence, he would pick them up out of the
dust and bring them to me, clever little spaniel that he was! I was
less miserable so long as I had that friend. Every day I put away a few
halfpence, for I wanted to get fifteen francs together, so that I m