“Yere all her things w’at she ’muse herse’f wid,” continued Seraphine, pointing to a soapbox which stood on the floor just beneath the open window. The box was filled with an indescribable assortment of odds and ends, mostly doll-rags. A catechism and a blue-*backed speller poked dog-eared corners from out of the confusion; for the Valtour children were making heroic and patient efforts toward Agapie’s training.
Seraphine cast herself upon her knees before the box and dived her thin brown hands among its contents. “I wan’ show you; I goin’ show you,” she kept repeating excitedly. Madame Valtour was standing beside her.
Suddenly the woman drew forth from among the rags, the Dresden lady, as dapper, sound, and smiling as ever. Seraphine’s hand shook so violently that she was in danger of letting the image fall to the floor. Madame Valtour reached out and took it very quietly from her. Then Seraphine rose tremblingly to her feet and broke into a sob that was pitiful to hear.
Agapie was approaching the cabin. She was a chubby girl of twelve. She walked with bare, callous feet over the rough ground and bare-headed under the hot sun. Her thick, short, black hair covered her head like a mane. She had been dancing along the path, but slackened her pace upon catching sight of the two women who had returned to the gallery. But when she perceived that her mother was crying she darted impetuously forward. In an instant she had her arms around her mother’s neck, clinging so tenaciously in her youthful strength as to make the frail woman totter.
Agapie had seen the Dresden figure in Madame Valtour’s possession and at once guessed the whole accusation.
“It en’t so! I tell you, maman, it en’t so! I neva touch’ it. Stop cryin’; stop cryin’!” and she began to cry most piteously herself.
“But Agapie, we fine it in yo’ box,” moaned Seraphine through her sobs.
“Then somebody put it there. Can’t you see somebody put it there? ’Ten’t so, I tell you.”
The scene was extremely painful to Madame Valtour. Whatever she might tell these two later, for the time she felt herself powerless to say anything befitting, and she walked away. But she turned to remark, with a hardness of expression and intention which she seldom displayed: “No one will know of this through me. But, Agapie, you must not come into my house again; on account of the children; I could not allow it.”
As she walked away she could hear Agapie comforting her mother with renewed protestations of innocence.