The justice started in his arm-chair. Was it, indeed, Mademoiselle Marguerite who was speaking, the proud young girl with a queenlike bearing, whose voice rang out like crystal? Was it she indeed, who imitated the harsh, coarse dialect of the lower classes with such accuracy of intonation? Ah! at that moment, as her past life rose so vividly before her, it seemed to her as if she were still in the years gone by, and she fancied she could still hear the voice of the bookbinder’s wife. She did not even notice the magistrate’s astonishment. “I had left the asylum,” she continued, “and that was everything to me. I felt that a new and different life was beginning, and that was enough. I flattered myself that I might win a more earnest and sincere affection among these honest, industrious toilers, than I had found in the asylum; and to win it and deserve it, I neglected nothing that good-will could suggest, or strength allow. My patrons no doubt fathomed my desire, and naturally enough, perhaps unconsciously, they took advantage of my wish to please. I can scarcely blame them. I had entered their home under certain conditions in view of learning a profession; they gradually made me their servant--it was praiseworthy economy on their part. What I had at first done of my own freewill and from a wish to please, at last became my daily task, which I was rigidly required to fulfil. Compelled to rise long before any one else in the house, I was expected to have everything in order by the time the others made their appearance with their eyes still heavy with sleep. It is true that my benefactors rewarded me after their fashion. On Sundays they took me with them on their excursions into the country, so as to give me a rest, they said, after the week’s work. And I followed them along the dusty highways in the hot sunshine, panting, perspiring, and tottering under the weight of a heavy basket of provisions, which were eaten on the grass or in the woods, and the remnants of which fell to me. Madame Greloux’s brother generally accompanied us; and his name would have lingered in my memory, even if it had not been a peculiar one. He was called Vantrasson. He was a tall, robust man, with eyes that made me tremble whenever he fixed them upon me. He was a soldier; intensely proud of his uniform; a great talker, and enchanted with himself. He evidently thought himself irresistible. It was from that man’s mouth that I heard the first coarse word at which my unsophisticated heart took offence. It was not to be the last one. He finally told me that he had taken a fancy to me, and I was obliged to complain to Madame Greloux of her brother’s persecutions. But she only laughed at me, and said: ‘Nonsense! He’s merely talking to hear himself talk.’ Yes, that was her answer. And yet she was an honest woman, a devoted wife, and a fond mother. Ah! if she had had a daughter. But with a poor apprentice, who has neither father nor mother, one need not be over-fastidious.