Here are four sous; go and
buy yourself some cakes.'"
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.
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