rcely out of the cradle,
and a mother half way to the grave, both addressing the Lord as their
only support in the silence of night--something so deeply sad that good
Buvat fell on his knees, and inwardly swore, what he had not dared to
offer aloud, that though Bathilde might be an orphan, yet she should not
be abandoned. God had heard the double prayers which had ascended to
Him, and He had granted them.

The next day Buvat did what he had never dared to do before. He took
Bathilde in his arms, leaned his good-natured round face against the
charming little face of the child, and said softly--

"Be easy, poor little innocent, there are yet good people on the earth."

The little girl threw her arms round his neck and kissed him. Buvat felt
that the tears stood in his eyes, and as he had often heard that you
must not cry before sick people, for fear of agitating them, he drew out
his watch, and assuming a gruff voice to conceal his emotion--

"Hum, it is a quarter to ten, I must go. Good-day, Madame du Rocher."

On the staircase he met the doctor, and asked him what he thought of the
patient. As he was a doctor who came through charity, and did not
consider himself at all bound to be considerate when he was not paid, he
replied that in three days she would be dead.

Coming back at four o'clock, Buvat found the whole house in commotion.
The doctor had said that they must send for the viaticum. They had sent
for the cure, and he had arrived, and, preceded by the sacristan and his
little bell, he had without any preparation entered the sick room.
Clarice received it with her hands joined, and her eyes turned toward
heaven; but the impression produced on her was not the less terrible.
Buvat heard singing, and thought what must have happened. He went up
directly, and found the landing and the door of the sick room surrounded
by all the gossips of the neighborhood, who had, as was the custom at
that time, followed the holy sacrament. Round the bed where the dying
woman was extended, already so pale and motionless that if it had not
been for the two great tears that ran down her cheeks, she might have
been taken for a marble statue lying on a tomb, the priests were singing
the prayers for the dying, and in a corner of the room the little
Bathilde, whom they had separated from her mother, that she might not
distract her attention during her last act of religion, was seated on
the ground, not daring to cry, frightened at seei