"How can I be sure," she said to me, "that, though my mother was a cook, my father might not have been a _prefet_, or even a prince?" For practical purposes she knew no parents save the peasants who brought her up. The State in France, thrifty as the people, makes the children abandoned to it a source of profit to the hard-working poor. Clementine was put out to nurse. The one spark of genuine affection she ever showed was for the woman to whose care she fell, and of whom she always spoke as _ma mere_, with a tenderness very different from her giggling adoration of the little Ernest. Incessant labour was the rule in _ma mere's_ house, and food was not too abundant, but of what there was Clementine had her share, though I fancy the scarcity then was the origin of the terrible hunger that consumed her throughout her life. About this hunger her story revolved, so that, while she talked of the past, I could seldom get far away from it. She recalled little else of the places the Institution found for her as servant. The State in France is as wise as it is thrifty, and does not demoralize its foundlings by free gifts, but, when the time comes, makes them work, appropriating their wages until it has been paid back the money they have cost it. Clementine went into service young. She also went into it hungry, and life became a never-ending struggle for food. In one place she was reduced to such straits that she devoured a dish of poisoned meat prepared for the stray cats of the neighbourhood, and, though it brought her almost to death's door, she could still recall it as a feast. In another, a small country grocery store, she would steal down in the night, trembling with fear, to hunt for bits of candy and crackers, and, safe in bed again, would have to fight for them with the rats that shared her garret. And her tale of this period grew more miserable and squalid with every new stage, until she reached the dreadful climax when, still a child herself, she brought a little girl into the world to share her hunger. She had the courage to laugh when she told me of her wandering, half-starved, back to _la bonne mere_, who took her in when her time came, and kept the baby. She could laugh, too, when she recalled the wrath of _M. le Directeur_ at the Institution, who sent for her, and scolded her, giving her a few sharp raps with his cane.