"Have you had a fever?" asked Aloïse, whose whole attention was now turned to Janette, and whom, indeed, she perceived to be very much altered. Janette told her that her illness had been caused by grief, for her rent was due, and she was unable to pay it, and her landlord had threatened to turn her and her three children out of doors, and take away her bed, which was all she possessed in the world.
"What," said Aloïse, "have you no chairs?"
Janette replied that she had had two wooden stools and a table, but that during the winter before last, which was that of 1789, she had been forced to burn them, for the cold was so intense, that one morning she found one of her children almost dead. A short time previously, she had lost her husband, after a long illness, which had exhausted all their resources, so that this was the third quarter's rent which she had been unable to pay. Her landlord had given her some further indulgence, but now told her, that if she did not pay by the next quarter, both she and her children should be turned into the street. "And well will it be for us," continued Janette, "if we find there a little straw on which to lie down and die, for we are too miserable to be taken in by any one." Saying this, she began to cry, and Aloïse, who was extremely kind and compassionate, felt ready to cry also. She asked Janette if her rent was very high. It was six francs a quarter. Three quarters were due, a louis would, therefore, be owing in July; and this was a sum which she could not possibly hope to pay, for her only means of living was the sale of her chickweed, together with a few flowers in summer, and some baked apples in the winter, all which was scarcely sufficient to find food for her children. She added that during her illness, they must have died of hunger, had it not been for the charity of some neighbours, and that she was now hastening home in order to get them some bread, as they had eaten nothing all day. Aloïse took from her drawer forty sous, which was all that remained of her month's allowance, for as she was very careless, she was never rich. These she gave to Janette, and the nurse added twenty more, thus making in all half a crown. The nurse also gave her, for the children, some old shoes which Aloïse had cast aside, and poor Janette went away delighted, forgetting for the time her unhappy condition, for the poor sometimes endure such pressing hardships, that when they find themselves for a moment freed from them, the happiness which they experience prevents them from thinking of the misery which awaits them.
After Janette's departure, Aloïse and her nurse continued talking of her for a long time. Aloïse would gladly have saved from her allowance eight francs a month, in order to make up the louis required by Janette, but this was impossible; she had lost her new gloves, and was obliged to buy others; a new pair of prunella shoes was to be brought home to her on the first of the month, to replace those she had spoiled by imprudently walking in the mud; besides, her thimble, her needles, her scissors, her thread, all of which she was constantly losing through her want of order, formed a source of considerable expense. Although she was eleven years of age, nothing had been able to cure her of this want of order, a defect which resulted from great vivacity, and from the fact, that when once an idea had taken possession of her mind, it so completely engrossed it that, for the moment, it was impossible for her to think of anything else. At present, it was Janette who occupied her thoughts. She would have been delighted to have had a louis to give her by the time her rent became due, but she did not dare to ask her parents for it, for she saw that, without being in any way embarrassed, they nevertheless lived with a certain degree of economy; besides, she knew them to be so kind, that if they could do anything, they would do it without being asked. When she went down to her mother's room, she spoke of Janette, of her grief for her, and of her desire to assist her. Twenty times she went over her calculations aloud, in order to let it be understood that she could not do so out of her allowance. Twenty times she repeated, "This poor Janette says that she must die upon straw, if she cannot pay her rent." Her mother, Madame d'Auvray, was writing, and her father was occupied in looking over some prints; neither of them appeared to hear her. Aloïse was in despair, for when she once wished for anything, she had no rest until she had either obtained it, or forgotten it. She was told that her drawing-master was waiting for her. Quite taken up with Janette and her grief, she left, as was almost invariably the case with her, her work upon the chair, her pincushion under it, her thimble on the table, and her scissors on the ground. Her mother called her back.
"Aloïse," said she, "will you never put away your work of your own accord, and without my being obliged to remind you of it?" Aloïse replied mournfully that she was thinking of something else.
"Of Janette, was it not?" said her father. "Well, then, since you are so anxious to get her out of trouble, let us make a bargain. Whenever you put away your work without being reminded of it by your mother, I will give you ten sous; in forty-eight days, therefore, you will be able to gain the louis, which will not be required by Janette for three months."
Oh! how delighted was Aloïse. She threw herself into her father's arms; her heart was freed from a heavy load.
"But," said M. d'Auvray, "in order that the agreement may be equal, it is necessary that you should pay something whenever you fail. It would be just to demand from you ten sous, but," added he, smiling, "I do not wish to make too hard a bargain for poor Janette; I will, therefore, only require of you five sous; but mind, I shall show no mercy, and you must not expect a fraction of the louis, unless you gain the whole. Here it is," said he, as he took it out of his pocket and placed it in a drawer of Madame d'Auvray's secretary; "now try to gain it."
Aloïse promised that it should be hers; her parents seemed to doubt it. It was, however, agreed, that Madame d'Auvray and Aloïse should each keep an account, in order to secure accuracy. And Aloïse was so pleased, and so eager to communicate the arrangement to her nurse, that she ran out of the room without putting away her work. Fortunately, she remembered it at the door; she ran back again, seized upon it, and beheld her father laughing heartily. "At all events," she exclaimed, "mamma did not remind me of it," and for once the excuse was admitted.