Her voice had no ring to it, and she scarcely moved her lips when she spoke. M. Tirande seemed very fond of his daughter-in-law. Every time he came he always asked her what she would like him to give her. She cared for nothing but linen, and he went off saying that he would get her some more. M. Alphonse never appeared at all except at meal times. I should have found it very difficult to say what he did with his time. His face reminded me of the Mother Superior's face somehow. Like her, he had a yellow skin and his eyes glittered. He looked as though he carried a brazier inside him which might burn him up at any minute. He was very pious, and every Sunday he and Madame Alphonse went to mass in the village where M. Tirande lived. At first they wanted to take me in their cart, but I refused. I preferred going to Sainte Montagne, where I always hoped to meet Pauline or Eugene. Sometimes one of the farm hands came with me, but more often I would go alone by a little cross road, which made the way much shorter. It was a steep and stony bit of road which ran uphill through the broom. On the very top of it I always used to stop in front of Jean le Rouge's house. This house was low-roofed and spreading. The walls were as black as the thatch which covered it, and it was quite easy to pass by the house without seeing it at all, for the broom grew so high all round it. I used to go in for a chat with Jean le Rouge, whom I had known ever since I had been at Villevieille farm. He had always worked for Master Silvain, who thought very highly of him. Eugene used to say of him that one could set him to anything, and that whatever he did he did well. Now M. Alphonse refused to employ him any more. He spoke of sending him away from the house on the hill. Jean le Rouge was so upset by the idea that he could talk of nothing else. Directly after mass I used to go home by the same road. Jean's children would crowd round me to get the blessed bread, which I brought out of church for them. There were six of them, and the eldest was not yet twelve years old. There was hardly one mouthful of my blessed bread, so I used to give it to Jean's wife to divide up and give to the children in equal shares. While she was doing this, Jean le Rouge would set a stool for me in front of the fire and would seat himself on a log of wood, which he would roll to the fireplace with his foot. His wife put some twigs on the fire with a pair of heavy pincers, and as we sat and talked we watched the big yellow potatoes cooking in the pot which hung from a hook in the fireplace. On the very first Sunday Jean le Rouge had told me that he, too, was a foundling. And little by little he had told me that when he was twelve he had been put to work with a woodcutter who used to live in the house on the hill. He had very soon learned how to climb up the trees to fasten a rope to the top branches so as to pull them over. When the