flowed abundantly down her pale
cheeks. For a young lady, like Adrienne de Cardoville, to treat her as a
sister, to kiss her hand, to tell her that she was proud to resemble her
in heart--her, a poor creature, vegetating in the lowest abyss of
misery--was to show a spirit of fraternal equality, divine, as the gospel
words.

There are words and impressions which make a noble soul forget years of
suffering, and which, as by a sudden flash, reveal to it something of its
own worth and grandeur. Thus it was with the hunchback. Thanks to this
generous speech, she was for a moment conscious of her own value. And
though this feeling was rapid as it was ineffable, she clasped her hands
and raised her eyes to heaven with an expression of fervent gratitude;
for, if the poor sempstress did not practise, to use the jargon of
ultramontane cant, no one was more richly endowed with that deep
religious sentiment, which is to mere dogmas what the immensity of the
starry heaven is to the vaulted roof of a church.

Five minutes after quitting Mdlle. de Cardoville, Mother Bunch, having
left the garden without being perceived, reascended to the first story,
and knocked gently at the door of the press-room. A sister came to open
the door to her.

"Is not Mdlle. Florine, with whom I came, still here, sister?" asked the
needlewoman.

"She could not wait for you any longer. No doubt, you have come from our
mother the superior?"

"Yes, yes, sister," answered the sempstress, casting down her eyes;
"would you have the goodness to show me the way out?"

"Come with me."

The sewing-girl followed the nun, trembling at every step lest she should
meet the superior, who would naturally have inquired the cause of her
long stay in the convent.

At length the inner gate closed upon Mother Bunch. Passing rapidly across
the vast court-yard and approaching the porter's lodge, to ask him to let
her out, she heard these words pronounced in a gruff voice: "It seems,
old Jerome, that we are to be doubly on our guard to-night. Well, I shall
put two extra balls in my gun. The superior says we are to make two
rounds instead of one."

"I want no gun, Nicholas," said the other voice; "I have my sharp scythe,
a true gardener's weapon--and none the worse for that."

Feeling an involuntary uneasiness at these words, which she had heard by
mere chance, Mother Bunch approached the porter's lodge, and asked him to
open the outer gate.

"Where do you come from?