"I sat there because M. Carrel asked me to. He has always been very kind to me—M. Carrel—ever since I was a child; and I would do anything to please him, but never that again.
"He was there too.
"I never thought anything about sitting before. I sat first as a child to M. Carrel. Mamma made me, and made me promise not to tell papa, and so I didn't. It soon seemed as natural to sit for people as to run errands for them, or wash and mend their clothes. Papa wouldn't have liked my doing that either, though we wanted the money badly. And so he never knew.
"I have sat for the altogether to several other people besides—M. Gérôme, Durien, the two Hennequins, and Émile Baratier; and for the head and hands to lots of people, and for the feet only to Charles Faure, André Besson, Mathieu Dumoulin, and Collinet. Nobody else.
"It seemed as natural for me to sit as for a man. Now I see the awful difference.
"And I have done dreadful things besides, as you must know—as all the quartier knows. Baratier and Besson; but not Durien, though people think so. Nobody else, I swear—except old Monsieur Penque at the beginning, who was mamma's friend.
"It makes me almost die of shame and misery to think of it; for that's not like sitting. I knew how wrong it was all along—and there's no excuse for me, none. Though lots of people do as bad, and nobody in the quartier seems to think any the worse of them.
"If you and Taffy and Little Billee cut me, I really think I shall go mad and die. Without your friendship I shouldn't care to live a bit. Dear Sandy, I love your little finger better than any man or woman I ever met; and Taffy's and Little Billee's little fingers too.
"What shall I do? I daren't go out for fear of meeting one of you. Will you come and see me?