As she opened the door of her house she heard the clattering of sabots running after her over the little bridge above the mill-dam, and, turning round, she saw the waif, who had caught up with her, and was bringing her her beater, her soap, the rest of the linen, and her shawl. "Oh!" said she, laying her hand on his shoulder, "you are not so foolish as I thought, for you are obliging, and nobody who has a good heart can be stupid. Come in, my child, come in and rest. Look at this poor little boy! He is carrying a load heavier than himself! Here," said she to the miller's old mother, who handed her her baby, rosy and smiling, "here is a poor sick-looking waif. You understand fevers, and we must try to cure him." "Ah! that is the fever of poverty!" replied the old woman, as she looked at François. "He could cure it with good soup, but he cannot get that. He is the little waif that belongs to the woman who moved in yesterday. She is your husband's tenant, Madeleine. She looks very wretched, and I am afraid that she will not pay regularly." Madeleine did not answer. She knew that her husband and her mother-in-law were not charitable, and that they loved their money more than their neighbor. She nursed her baby, and when the old woman had gone out to drive home the geese, she took François by the hand, and, holding Jeannie on her arm, went with them to Zabelle's. Zabelle, whose real name was Isabelle Bigot, was an old maid of fifty, as disinterested as a woman can be when she has nothing to live on, and is in constant dread of starvation. She had taken François after he was weaned, from a dying woman, and had brought him up ever since, for the sake of the monthly payment of a few pieces of silver, and with the expectation of making a little servant out of him. She had lost her sheep, and was forced to buy others on credit, whenever she could obtain it; for she had no other means of support than her little flock, and a dozen hens, which lived at the expense of the parish. She meant François to tend this poor flock along the roadsides, until he should be old enough to make his first communion, after which she expected to hire him out as best she could, either as a little swineherd or a plowboy, and she was sure that if his heart were good he would give part of his wages to his adopted mother. Zabelle had come from Mers, the day after the feast of Saint Martin, leaving her last goat behind her in payment of what she owed on her rent, and had taken possession of the little cottage belonging to the mill of Cormouer, without being able to offer any security beside her pallet-bed, two chairs, a chest, and a few earthen vessels. The house was so poor, so ill-protected from the weather, and of such trifling value, that the miller was obliged to incur the risk of letting it to a poor tenant, or to leave it unoccupied.