ects I had nearly forgotten--the Chourineur, the
Schoolmaster, the Chouette--that horrible, one-eyed woman who had
tortured my earliest infancy. Oh, what a night! _Mon Dieu!_--what a
night! What dreams!" said the Goualeuse, shuddering at their very
recollection.

"Poor Marie!" said the cure with emotion. "Why did you not earlier tell
me all this? I should have found comfort for you. But go on."

"I slept so late, that Mademoiselle Clara awoke me by kissing me. To
overcome what she called my coldness, and show her regard, she told me a
secret--that she was going to be married when she was eighteen to the
son of a farmer at Goussainville, whom she loved very dearly, and the
union had long been agreed upon by the two families. Then she added a
few words of her past life, so simple, calm, and happy! She had never
quitted her mother, and never intended to do so, for her husband was to
take part in the management of the farm with M. Dubreuil. 'Now, Marie,'
she said, 'you know me as well as if you were my sister. So tell me all
about your early days.'

"I thought when I heard the words that I should have died of them; I
blushed and stammered; I did not know what Madame Georges had said of
me, and I was fearful of telling a falsehood; I answered vaguely, that I
had been an orphan, educated by a very rigid person; and that I had not
been happy in my infancy; and that my happiness was dated from the
moment when I had come to live with Madame Georges; then Clara, as much
by interest as curiosity, asked me where I had been educated, in the
city or the country, my father's name, and, above all, if I remembered
anything of my mother. All these questions embarrassed as much as they
pained me, for I was obliged to reply with falsehood, and you have
taught me, father, how wicked it is to lie; but Clara did not think that
I was deceiving her; she attributed the hesitation of my answers to the
pain which my early sorrows renewed; she believed me and pitied me with
a sincerity that cut me to the soul. Oh, father, you never can know what
I suffered in this conversation, and how much it cost me only to reply
in language of falsehood and hypocrisy!"

"Unfortunate girl! The anger of heaven will weigh heavily on those who,
by casting you into the vile road of perdition, have compelled you to
undergo all your life the sad consequences of a first fault."

"Oh, yes, they were indeed cruel, father," replied Fleur-de-Marie,
bitterly, "for my sh