eble was heard in the
streets. "If yer'd stay with me you'd be doin' me a service and yer
wouldn't be unhappy. You'd make a livin'. Is it a go?"

"Oh, thank you, but it's not possible," replied Perrine.

Finding that the reasons she advanced were not sufficient to induce
Perrine to stay with her, La Rouquerie put forth another:

"And yer wouldn't have to leave Palikare."

This was a great grief, but Perrine had made up her mind.

"I must go to my relations; I really must," she said.

"Did your relatives save yer life, like that there donkey?" insisted La
Rouquerie.

"But I promised my mother."

"Go, then, but you see one fine day you'll be sorry yer didn't take what
I offered yer p'raps."

"You are very kind and I shall always remember you."

When they reached Creil, La Rouquerie hunted up her friend, the farmer,
and asked him to give Perrine a lift in his cart as far as Amiens. He
was quite willing, and for one whole day Perrine enjoyed the comfort of
lying stretched out on the straw, behind two good trotting horses. At
Essentaux she slept in a barn.

The next day was Sunday, and she was up bright and early and quickly
made her way to the railway station. Handing her five francs to the
ticket seller she asked for a ticket to Picquigny. This time she had the
satisfaction of seeing that her five francs was accepted. She received
her ticket and seventy-five cents in change.

It was 12 o'clock when the train pulled in at the station at Picquigny.
It was a beautiful, sunny morning, the air was soft and warm, far
different from the scorching heat which had prostrated her in the woods,
and she ... how unlike she was from that miserable little girl who had
fallen by the wayside. And she was clean, too. During the days she had
spent with La Rouquerie she had been able to mend her waist and her
skirt, and had washed her linen and shined her shoes. Her past
experience was a lesson: she must never give up hope at the darkest
moment; she must always remember that there was a silver cloud, if she
would only persevere.

She had a long walk after she got out of the train at Picquigny. But
she walked along lightly past the meadows bordered with poplars and
limes, past the river where the villagers in their Sunday clothes were
fishing, past the windmills which, despite the fact that the day was
calm, were slowly moving round, blown by the breeze from the sea which
could be felt even there.

She walked through the prett