a has
prepared for me.' How my heart beat, as I ran fast, very fast, up to my
closet! I stopped a moment before opening the door, that my happiness
might last the longer. At last I entered the room, my eyes swimming with
tears of joy. I looked upon my table, my chair, my bed--there was
nothing. The little box was not to be found. My heart sank within me.
Then I said to myself: 'It will be to-morrow--this is only the eve of my
birthday.' The day is gone. Evening is come. Nothing. The pretty box was
not for me. It had a pincushion-cover. It was only suited for a woman. To
whom has Agricola given it?

"I suffer a good deal just now. It was a childish idea that I connected
with Agricola's wishing me many happy returns of the day. I am ashamed to
confess it; but it might have proved to me, that he has not forgotten I
have another name besides that of Mother Bunch, which they always apply
to me. My susceptibility on this head is unfortunately so stubborn, that
I cannot help feeling a momentary pang of mingled shame and sorrow, every
time that I am called by that fairy-tale name, and yet I have had no
other from infancy. It is for that very reason that I should have been so
happy if Agricola had taken this opportunity to call me for once by my
own humble name--Magdalen. Happily, he will never know these wishes and
regrets!"

Deeper and deeper touched by this page of simple grief, Florine turned
over several leaves, and continued:

"I have just been to the funeral of poor little Victorine Herbin, our
neighbor. Her father, a journeyman upholsterer, is gone to work by the
month, far from Paris. She died at nineteen, without a relation near her.
Her agony was not long. The good woman who attended her to the last, told
us that she only pronounced these words: 'At last, oh at last!' and that
with an air of satisfaction, added the nurse. Dear child! she had become
so pitiful. At fifteen, she was a rosebud--so pretty, so fresh-looking,
with her light hair as soft as silk; but she wasted away by degrees--her
trade of renovating mattresses killed her. She was slowly poisoned by the
emanations from the wool.[26] They were all the worse, that she worked
almost entirely for the poor, who have cheap stuff to lie upon.

"She had the courage of a lion, and an angel's resignation, She always
said to me, in her low, faint voice, broken by a dry and frequent cough:
'I have not long to live, breathing, as I do, lime and vitriol all day
long.