y old Daddy is
very kind; he takes such care of me, and is so nice; I know now what my
mother ought to have been.--He is going to get an old woman to help
me, for he doesn't like me to dirty my hands with cooking. For the past
month, too, he has been making a little money, and he gives me three
francs every evening that I put into a money-box. Only he will never
let me out except to come here--and he calls me his little kitten! Mamma
never called me anything but bad names--and thief, and vermin!"

"Well, then, my child, why should not Daddy Vyder be your husband?"

"But he is, madame," said the girl, looking at Adeline with calm pride,
without a blush, her brow smooth, her eyes steady. "He told me that I
was his little wife; but it is a horrid bore to be a man's wife--if it
were not for the burnt almonds!"

"Good Heaven!" said the Baroness to herself, "what monster can have had
the heart to betray such perfect, such holy innocence? To restore this
child to the ways of virtue would surely atone for many sins.--I knew
what I was doing." thought she, remembering the scene with Crevel. "But
she--she knows nothing."

"Do you know Monsieur Samanon?" asked Atala, with an insinuating look.

"No, my child; but why do you ask?"

"Really and truly?" said the artless girl.

"You have nothing to fear from this lady," said the Italian woman. "She
is an angel."

"It is because my good old boy is afraid of being caught by Samanon. He
is hiding, and I wish he could be free--"

"Why?"

"On! then he would take me to Bobino, perhaps to the Ambigu."

"What a delightful creature!" said the Baroness, kissing the girl.

"Are you rich?" asked Atala, who was fingering the Baroness' lace
ruffles.

"Yes, and No," replied Madame Hulot. "I am rich for dear little girls
like you when they are willing to be taught their duties as Christians
by a priest, and to walk in the right way."

"What way is that?" said Atala; "I walk on my two feet."

"The way of virtue."

Atala looked at the Baroness with a crafty smile.

"Look at madame," said the Baroness, pointing to the stove-fitter's
wife, "she has been quite happy because she was received into the bosom
of the Church. You married like the beasts that perish."

"I?" said Atala. "Why, if you will give me as much as Daddy Vyder gives
me, I shall be quite happy unmarried again. It is a grind.--Do you know
what it is to--?"

"But when once you are united to a man as you are," the Baron