"'This little fellow isn't mine,' replied Jacqueline, 'it's a foster-child that was placed in my charge, and left on my hands. I'll tell you how it happened. I was nursing my boy, who was four months old, and as we weren't rich, I said to my husband, who was alive then: "I'm going to Paris, to enter my name at the nurses' bureau, and then I'll wait for a child to nurse."—He agreed, so I started for Paris. When I got there, I asked a lady who was passing, what way I should go to get to the nurses' bureau. The lady, who was dressed very simply, examined me for some time, then she says:
"'"You mean to go to the nurses' bureau and enter your name and get a child to nurse?"
"'"Yes, madame," I says, "I've come to Paris just for that."
"'"Where do you come from?"
"'"I live at Morfontaine, ten leagues from Paris."
"'"Well! your lucky star put you in my path, for if you are looking for a child to nurse, I am looking for a nurse—for a very rich lady who lay in three days ago of a fine little boy who's as good as a charm. She meant at first to bring him up on the bottle, but she's changed her mind, and I'll take you to her; so you don't need to enter your name at the nurses' bureau, which is very lucky for you, because in this way you'll save a lot of expenses."
"'I listened to the lady with joy in my heart; I was delighted to find what I wanted just as soon as I got out of the stage, and I was glad, too, to get the child of a rich person, because they always pay better. So I told the lady that I asked nothing better than to go with her; then she took me to a big square where there was lots of carriages, told me to get into one of them with her, said something quietly to the driver, and we started.
"'I don't know anything about Paris, and I don't know where they took me. At last the carriage stopped; we were in a narrow, dirty street, and I says to myself: "It's a funny thing that rich people in Paris should live in such nasty streets!" But the lady says to me:
"'"We're going in at the rear of the house, because the noise of the carriage can't be heard so distinctly and it don't bother madame la baronne so much."
"'"Good," says I to myself, "the child's mother's a baroness—that's fine."