"I feel that, father, and was wrong, no doubt; but I could not subdue my shame and fear. When Clara was once settled at the farm, I was as sad as I had before thought I should be happy, when I reflected on the pleasure of having a companion of my own age. She, on the contrary, was all joy and lightness. She had a bed in my apartment; and the first evening before she went to bed she kissed me, saying that she loved me already, and felt every kind sentiment towards me. She made me to call her Clara, and she would call me Marie. Then she said her prayers, telling me that she would join my name with hers in her prayers, if I would also unite her name with mine. I did not dare to refuse; and, after talking for some time, she went to sleep. I had not got into my bed, and, approaching her bedside, I contemplated her angel face with tears in my eyes; and then, reflecting that she was sleeping in the same chamber with me--with one who had been at the ogress's, mixed up with robbers and murderers, I trembled as if I had committed some crime, and a thousand nameless fears beset me. I thought that God would one day punish me. I went to sleep and had horrid dreams. I saw again those frightful objects I had nearly forgotten--the Chourineur, the Schoolmaster, the Chouette--that horrible, one-eyed woman who had tortured my earliest infancy. Oh, what a night! _Mon Dieu!_--what a night! What dreams!" said the Goualeuse, shuddering at their very recollection. "Poor Marie!" said the curé with emotion. "Why did you not earlier tell me all this? I should have found comfort for you. But go on." "I slept so late, that Mademoiselle Clara awoke me by kissing me. To overcome what she called my coldness, and show her regard, she told me a secret--that she was going to be married when she was eighteen to the son of a farmer at Goussainville, whom she loved very dearly, and the union had long been agreed upon by the two families. Then she added a few words of her past life, so simple, calm, and happy! She had never quitted her mother, and never intended to do so, for her husband was to take part in the management of the farm with M. Dubreuil. 'Now, Marie,' she said, 'you know me as well as if you were my sister. So tell me all about your early days.'