“I had just passed my examinations, n’est-ce pas? monsieur, madame, and had received my advancement, and we had just got into the little house I had built with my savings. Now it is burnt—burnt to the ground. And these wages, for a man like me, mademoiselle, it is something I cannot bring myself to. Je ne puis pas m’y faire, savez vous.”
“But Madame Deens is so well here, and we will look after her,” said Mademoiselle.
“Ah, but I could earn more money elsewhere! I might have something to bring back to my own country.”
Of course he has had his way. A bustling lady got him into a motor factory, and he dragged his weeping but resistless spouse to a townlet, where they are lodged in one room; where the only person we could think of to interest in their favour was the old parish priest, who turned out to be queer in his head, but where Deens is in receipt of thirty-two shillings a week. We are sure that what can be saved is being saved for the retour au pays, and meanwhile the poor little woman’s hour of trouble is approaching, and she must get through it as best she can, unbefriended. We feel anxious.
Before she left, with many tears, she gave the Signorina, who had sympathized with her, the only gift she could contrive out of her destitution. It was the youngest child’s little pair of wooden shoes!
III
OUR MINISTERING ANGELS
“Chi poco sa, presto lo dice!”
Wisdom of Nations.
Of course we are not behindhand in our village in the Red Cross movement.