y
ceremony will take place probably in about a fortnight from hence."

"How gratefully she will receive such an information; her religious
feelings are the strongest I have ever met with."

"Alas, poor thing! she has deep and heavy expiation to make for the
errors of her past life."

"Nay, M. l'Abbe, consider. Abandoned so young, without resource, without
friends, almost without a knowledge of good or evil, plunged
involuntarily into the very vortex of crime, what was there to prevent
her from falling the bitter sacrifice she has been?"

"The clear, moral sense of right and wrong implanted by the Creator in
every breast should have withheld her; and, besides, we have no evidence
of her having even sought to escape from the horrible fate into which
she had fallen. Is there no friendly hand to be found in Paris to listen
to the cries of suffering virtue? Is charity so rare, so hard to obtain
in that large city?"

"Let us hope not, M. l'Abbe; but how to discover it is the difficulty.
Ere arriving at the knowledge of one kind, commiserating Christian,
think of the refusals, the rebukes, the denials to be endured. And,
then, in such a case as our poor Marie's, it was no passing temporary
aid that could avail her, but the steady, continued patronage and
support, the being placed in the way to earn an honest livelihood. Many
tender and pitying mothers would have succoured her had they known her
sad case, I doubt not, but it was first requisite to secure the
happiness of knowing where to meet with them. Trust me, I, too, have
known want and misery. But for one of those providential chances which,
alas! too late, threw poor Marie in the way of M. Rodolph,--but for one
of those casualties, the wretched and destitute, most commonly repulsed
with rude denial on their first applications, believe pity irretrievably
lost, and, pressed by hunger, fierce, clamorous hunger, often seek in
vice that relief they despair to obtain from commiseration."

At this moment the Goualeuse entered the parlour.

"Where have you been, my dear child?" inquired Madame Georges,
anxiously.

"Visiting the fruit-house, madame, after having shut up the hen-houses
and gates of the poultry-yard. All the fruit has kept excellently,--all
but those I ran away with and ate."

"Now, Marie, why take all this fatigue upon yourself? You should have
left all this tiring work to Claudine; I fear you have quite tired
yourself."

"No, no! dear Madame Georges;