"When you left prison?"
"Yes; it is quite a story. But you do not, I hope, think I was in prison for any crime?"
"Certainly not; but how was it?"
"After the cholera, I found myself alone in the world; I was then, I believe, about ten years of age."
"Until that time, who had taken care of you?"
"Oh, very good people; but they died of the cholera (here the large black eyes became tearful); the little they left was sold to discharge two or three small debts, and I found that no one would shelter me. Not knowing what to do I went to the guard-house, opposite where I had resided, and said to the sentinel: 'Soldier, my parents are dead, and I do not know where to go. What must I do?' The sub-officer came and took me to the magistrate, who sent me to prison as a vagabond, which I was allowed to quit at sixteen years of age."
"But your parents?"
"I do not know who was my father; I was six years old when I lost my mother, who had taken me from the Foundling Hospital, where she had been compelled at first to place me. The kind people of whom I have spoken lived in our house; they had no children, and seeing me an orphan, took care of me."
"And how did they live? What was their condition in life?"
"Papa Cretu, so I always called him, was a house-painter, and the female who lived with him worked at her needle."