The little blue placard hung over the cot, as in the foundling hospitals, states the child’s nationality: “Moldo, Wallachian.” What a piece of ill-luck that Monsieur the Secretary’s attention should have been attracted to that particular child! Oh, that poor little head lying on the pillow, its linen cap askew, with pinched nostrils, and mouth half opened by a quick, panting respiration, the breathing of the newly born, of those also who are about to die. “Is he ill?” asked Monsieur the Secretary softly of the director, who has come up to him. “Not the least in the world,” the shameless Pompon replies, and, advancing to the side of the cot, he tries to make the little one laugh by tickling him with his finger, straightens the pillow, and says in a hearty voice, somewhat overcharged with tenderness: “Well, old fellow?” Shaken out of his torpor, escaping for a moment from the shades which already are closing on him, the child opens his eyes on those faces leaning over him, glances at them with a gloomy indifference, then, returning to his dream which he finds more interesting, clinches his little wrinkled hands and heaves an elusive sigh. Mystery! Who shall say for what end that baby had been born into life? To suffer for two months and to depart without having seen anything, understood anything, without any one even knowing the sound of his voice. “How pale he is!” murmurs M. de la Perriere, very pale himself. The Nabob is livid also. A cold breath seems to have passed over the place. The director assumes an air of unconcern. “It is the reflection. We are all of us green here.” “Yes, yes, that is so,” remarks Jenkins, “it is the reflection of the lake. Come and look, Monsieur the Secretary.” And he draws him to the window to point out to him the large sheet of water with its dipping willows, while Mme. Polge makes haste to draw over the eternal dream of the little Wallachian the parted curtains of his cradle. The inspection of the establishment must be continued very quickly in order to destroy this unfortunate impression.