me to sell Bambin, because he was clever, and she was sure I could get a good price for him. But I would rather have sold the heart out of my body, and so I told her. Then she was angry, and turned us both out, Bambin and me, and we went wandering about all day till at last I got very faint and tired, for I had been ill a long time, monsieur, and we had nothing to eat, so that I lost my senses and fell in the road all at once, and a cart went over me. Then the people picked me up, and carried me here, but none of them knew Bambin, and I had fainted and could tell them nothing. So they must have driven him away, thinking he was a strange dog, and had no right to follow me. And when my senses came back I was in the hospital, and Bambin was gone, and I thought I never should see him again." She sank down on her pillow and drew a great sigh of relief. It had evidently comforted her to tell her story to sympathetic listeners. Poor child! Scant sympathy could she have found in Maman Paquet's unwomanly breast and evil associations. We were silent when she had finished, and in the silence we heard through the open window the joyous song of the birds, and the hum of the bees wandering blithely from flower to flower, laden with their sweets,--sounds that never cease through all the long summer days. Alas! how strange and sad a contrast it is,--the eternal and exuberant gladness of Nature's soulless children,--the universal inevitable misery of human lives! Presently the religieuse who had the charge of the adjoining ward opened the door softly and called Eugene. "Monsieur, will you come to No. 7 for a moment? Her wound is bleeding again badly." He looked up, nodded, and rose from his seat. "I must go for the present, Gervais," said he. "If you stay with our little friend, don't let her disarrange her arm. The ribs are all right now, but the humerus is a longer affair. Au revoir!" But I found Noemi too much excited and fatigued for further conversation; so, promising to take every possible care of Bambin and to come again and see her very soon, I withdrew to the adjoining ward and joined Eugene. No need to say that both these promises were faith-fully observed. Throughout the whole of July and of the ensuing month Noemi remained an inmate of the hospital, and it was not until the first two weeks of September were spent that the fractured arm was consolidated and the mandate for dismissal issued. Two days before that fixed for her departure I went to pay her the last of my customary visits, and found her sitting at the open window busily engaged in weaving lace upon a new pillow, which she exhibited to me with childish glee. "See, monsieur, what a beautiful present I have had!" she cried, holding up the cushion for me to examine. "It is much better than the old one I sold; only look how prettily the bobbins on it are painted!" I had never before beheld a lace pillow, and the curiosity which I displayed fairly delighted Noemi.