Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Jen Haines and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net Transcriber's Note: Some spelling variations have been standardised to agree with the original French version of "En Famille". For example "Madamoiselle" and "Mademoiselle" have been changed to Mademoiselle exclusively. Dr Cendrier, rather than Centrier, is correct according to the original French version, so Centrier has been changed to Cendrier. In the fourth last paragraph "daughter" has been corrected to "granddaughter". Some spelling, punctuation and grammatical errors have been corrected where detected. [Illustration: "WHY, IT'S BEAUTIFUL," SAID PERRINE, SOFTLY. (See page 86)] NOBODY'S GIRL (_En Famille_) BY HECTOR MALOT TRANSLATED BY FLORENCE CREWE-JONES _Illustrated by_ THELMA GOOCH NEW YORK MCMXXII CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY _Copyright, 1922, by_ CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY Printed in United States of America CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I PERRINE AND PALIKARE 1 II GRAIN-OF-SALT IS KIND 20 III "POOR LITTLE GIRL" 41 IV A HARD ROAD TO TRAVEL 47 V STORMS AND FEARS 59 VI THE RESCUE 72 VII MARAUCOURT AT LAST 77 VIII GRANDFATHER VULFRAN 86 IX ONE SLEEPLESS NIGHT 95 X THE HUT ON THE ISLAND 110 XI WORK IN THE FACTORY 115 XII NEW SHOES 130 XIII STRANGE HOUSEKEEPING 136 XIV A BANQUET IN THE HUT 149 XV AURELIE'S CHANCE 157 XVI GRANDFATHER'S INTERPRETER 166 XVII HARD QUESTIONS 175 XVIII SECRETARY TO M. VULFRAN 184 XIX SUSPICION AND CONFIDENCE 194 XX THE SCHEMERS 206 XXI LETTERS FROM DACCA 217 XXII A CABLE TO DACCA 227 XXIII GRANDFATHER'S COMPANION 238 XXIV GETTING AN EDUCATION 248 XXV MEDDLING RELATIVES 260 XXVI PAINFUL ARGUMENTS 269 XXVII THE BLIND MAN'S GRIEF 277 XXVIII AN UNRESPECTED FUNERAL 285 XXIX THE ANGEL OF REFORM 292 XXX GRANDFATHER FINDS PERRINE 302 XXXI THE GRATEFUL PEOPLE 307 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE "WHY, IT'S BEAUTIFUL," SAID PERRINE, SOFTLY. (_See Page 86_) _Frontispiece_