"Well! don't we propose to go to sleep to-day, Mademoiselle Marie? Don't we propose to shut our lovely eyes? Oh, yes! we have very lovely eyes, but we must sleep, all the same; that will do us good! And then, mamma wants you to. Do you hear, dear child? mamma wants you to. Oh, yes! you hear me; you smile at me. Ah! she holds out her little arms, she wants me to take her! Mon Dieu! but it would do her so much good to sleep! But I must do what you want me to, mustn't I?" She bent over the cradle and took up the child; then she stood up, and saw me. She cast a sad glance at me, in which I no longer saw any trace of alarm. "Excuse me, madame," I said, stepping forward; "I ventured to come to see you, because Madame Potrelle told me this morning that your little Marie was ill. I studied medicine a little, long ago; I shall be happy if I can assist you with advice, which you may follow if you think it good!--Ah! she is very pretty, dear child!" "Isn't she, monsieur?" And Mignonne smiled when she saw me gazing at her daughter, who was really beautiful and already bore much resemblance to her mother. But her pretty features were drawn and worn, and denoted some internal trouble; her eyes too were sad, and it is with the eyes that children express their feelings before they have learned to talk. "How old is she, madame?" "Almost fifteen months, monsieur." "She seems very big for that age, and I have no doubt that it is her precocious growth that makes her ill." "Do you think so, monsieur? Yes, that must be one of the causes. She is very large for fifteen months; and yet she isn't stout, she isn't too big, like the children that are abnormal!" "Allow me to feel her pulse." I took the child's hand; the skin was dry and burning. Mignonne read in my face that I was not satisfied with that examination. "She's feverish, isn't she, monsieur?" "A little; growing fever; that ought not to alarm you." "Oh! do you think she will get well, monsieur?" "Certainly I do, madame. Her condition doesn't even seem to me serious enough for you to be worried about her." "But, monsieur, it's more than a month that she's been like this; sometimes she's better for a day or two; then she laughs and sings--yes, monsieur, I give you my word that she sings, poor dear! To be sure, I don't suppose anybody but her mother can understand her. But then she falls back into this sort of prostration, the fever comes back, and she refuses everything. Mon Dieu! then I don't know what to do to bring a smile back to her lips. Do you suppose that she's in pain? The poor little things can't tell us where they feel sick. But she will get well, won't she, monsieur?"