"Father Mabœuf, shall I water the garden for you?" At the same time a sound like that of a wild beast breaking through was heard in the hedge, and he saw a tall thin girl emerge, who stood before him, looking at him boldly. She looked less like a human being than some form engendered of the darkness. Before Father Mabœuf, whom, as we said, a trifle terrified, found time to answer a syllable, this creature, whose movements had in the gloom a sort of strange suddenness, had unhooked the chain, let down and drawn up the bucket, and filled the watering-pot; and the old gentleman saw this apparition, which was barefooted and wore a ragged skirt, running along the flower-beds and distributing life around her. The sound of the water pattering on the leaves filled M. Mabœuf's soul with ravishment, and the rhododendron now seemed to him to be happy. The first bucket emptied, the girl drew a second, then a third, and watered the whole garden. To see her moving thus along the walks in which her outline appeared quite black, and waving on her long thin arms her ragged shawl, she bore a striking resemblance to a bat. When she had finished, Father Mabœuf went up to her with tears in his eyes, and laid his hand on her forehead. "God will bless you," he said, "you are an angel, since you take care of flowers." "No," she replied, "I am the Devil, but I don't care." The old man continued, without waiting for or hearing the reply,-- "What a pity that I am so unhappy and so poor, and can do nothing for you!" "You can do something," she said. "What is it!" "Tell me where M. Marius lives." The old man did not understand. "What Monsieur Marius?" He raised his glassy eyes and seemed seeking something which had vanished. "A young man who used to come here." "Ah, yes!" he exclaimed, "I know whom you mean. Wait a minute! Monsieur Marius, Baron Marius Pontmercy, pardieu! lives, or rather he does not live--well, I do not know." While speaking, he had stooped to straighten a rhododendron branch, and continued,-- "Ah yes, I remember now. He passes very frequently along the boulevard, and goes in the direction of the Lark's field in the Rue Croulebarbe. Look for him there, he will not be difficult to find." When M. Mabœuf raised his head again, he was alone, and the girl had disappeared. He was decidedly a little frightened. "Really," he thought, "if my garden were not watered, I should fancy that it was a ghost." An hour after, when he was in bed, this idea returned to him, and while falling asleep, he said to himself confusedly at the disturbed moment when thought gradually assumes the form of dream in order to pass through sleep, like the fabulous bird which metamorphoses itself into a fish to cross the sea,-- "Really now, this affair greatly resembles what La Rubaudière records about the goblins. Could it have been a ghost?" CHAPTER IV. MARIUS HAS AN APPARITION.