“‘I am a Picarde, monsieur, from the village of Coulange, near Abbeville; my name is Marguerite Thomasseau; my husband raises donkeys, and we’ve had four nurslings already.’ “‘All right, take this little one and go.’ “‘But, monsieur,’ I says, ‘what about the _layette;_ where’s the little one’s _layette?_’ “At that, the handsome gentleman looks at his swell servant as if he was surprised, and says: “‘What’s this woman talking about? What’s a _layette?_’ “The servant who was better instructed than his master, says: “‘Monsieur, it is the child’s trousseau, the little things that people give to dress it in.’ “‘Oh! the devil! I didn’t know that myself, and it seems she didn’t think of it either! Never mind, Comtois, give her some of my trousers and waistcoats, give her my old dressing-gown and some linen; the nurse can make them over and we’ll send her something else later. Make haste, Comtois. Here, put in this handkerchief too, which belongs to the child’s mother, and which I put in my pocket by mistake yesterday.’ “The servant made me up a bundle in a hurry; and a queer _layette_ it was, I tell you! I don’t believe that any young one ever had one like it; it consisted of a woolen dressing-gown lined with silk, three pairs of broadcloth trousers, six cravats, two white piqué waistcoats and one black satin one, six fine shirts, a pair of suspenders, and a white handkerchief embroidered with a cipher, with a coronet on it. As for the handkerchief, I still have that, I have kept it so that the child might have something that belonged to her parents. However, all that stuff was better than nothing; I took the bundle and they were already turning me out of the room with my nursling, when I remembered that I didn’t know anybody’s name. “‘Well, monsieur, what’s the little one’s name, and yours, and your wife’s?’ “At that the gentleman made a funny kind of face; he hesitated a long while, as if he was trying to think what answer he could make, and finally he said: “‘The child’s name is Evelina--Evelina de Paulausky.--Now go; I will write to you.’ “At that he pushed me out with the child and the bundle. I started back the same day; and since then, and that was three years ago, not a word from the child’s parents. Evelina they called her, but we found that name too long and too hard to pronounce, and so, as the child when she was a year old, loved violets and could pick them as she rolled about on the grass, why we just called her Violette; you can call her so too, if you choose. She answers to that name better than to Evelina!” That is what the nurse had told the good woman who took Violette to Paris. That charitable person was by no means wealthy, but she had given the child some education. Violette had learned to read, to write, and to do some kinds of sewing, but her protectress died before she was very learned. The child was only eleven when she lost her.