ho is prevailed upon to nurse her child for a few days, in
the hope that she will grow attached to the babe and be unable to part
from it. The chief object in view is to save the child, because its
best nurse is its natural nurse, the mother. And Norine, instinctively
divining the trap set for her, had struggled to escape it, and repeated,
sensibly enough, that one ought not to begin such a task when one meant
to throw it up in a few days' time. As soon as she yielded she was
certain to be caught; her egotism was bound to be vanquished by the wave
of pity, love, and hope that would sweep through her heart. The poor,
pale, puny infant had weighed but little the first time he took the
breast. But every morning afterwards he had been weighed afresh, and on
the wall at the foot of the bed had been hung the diagram indicating the
daily difference of weight. At first Norine had taken little interest in
the matter, but as the line gradually ascended, plainly indicating how
much the child was profiting, she gave it more and more attention. All
at once, as the result of an indisposition, the line had dipped down;
and since then she had always feverishly awaited the weighing, eager to
see if the line would once more ascend. Then, a continuous rise having
set in, she laughed with delight. That little line, which ever ascended,
told her that her child was saved, and that all the weight and strength
he acquired was derived from her--from her milk, her blood, her flesh.
She was completing the appointed work; and motherliness, at last
awakened within her, was blossoming in a florescence of love.

"If you want to kill him," continued Mathieu, "you need only take him
from your breast. See how eagerly the poor little fellow is nursing!"

This was indeed true. And Norine burst into big sobs: "_Mon Dieu_! you
are beginning to torture me again. Do you think that I shall take any
pleasure in getting rid of him now? You force me to say things which
make me weep at night when I think of them. I shall feel as if my very
vitals were being torn out when this child is taken from me! There, are
you both pleased that you have made me say it? But what good does it do
to put me in such a state, since nobody can remedy things, and he must
needs go to the foundlings, while I return to the gutter, to wait for
the broom that's to sweep me away?"

But Cecile, who likewise was weeping, kissed and kissed the child, and
again reverted to her dream, explainin