"'Take good care of your brother; perhaps he won't have anybody but you to support him before long.'
"A whole year passed. Clotilde's husband used to write often at first, but all of a sudden his letters stopped. There had been a battle—for in those days they were fighting all the time.
"Poor Clotilde's husband was killed. The folks in the neighborhood heard of it, but no one was brave enough to tell her; and Clotilde kept expecting to hear from him long after he was dead.
"Every day, the poor woman used to go to the top of a hill, where you can see the road a long way in the direction of Grenoble; that was the way she expected to see her husband come. She often passed whole days sitting at the foot of a tree, looking at the road where she saw her dear husband the last time.
"When anybody saw Clotilde there, they'd try to comfort her by talking about her children, but she'd say in a sad voice:
"'Anne is with her brother; she never leaves him; she'll be a second mother to him.'
"You see, the little girl was only seven years old, but she surprised the whole village by her intelligence and her loving care of her brother. The poor little fellow didn't see anybody but her most of the day, but he always had all he wanted. His Sister Anne dressed him, put him to sleep, played with him, and tried to guess what he was going to want; so her name, Sister Anne, was the first word he ever spoke, and everybody in the village called her that, and spoke of her as a model of sisterly affection; she has gone by that name ever since.
"One day, Clotilde went out as usual, to go where she always used to go, and left Sister Anne with her brother. Their mother didn't come back at the usual time. The little boy kept on playing, but his sister kept looking out into the fields and saying:
"'Why don't mamma come?'
"When the night came, Clotilde hadn't come home. If Anne had been alone, she would have gone to the village and all around, to ask if anyone had seen her mother. But she couldn't leave her brother; he was a treasure that had been given to her to take care of, and she couldn't think of leaving him for an instant. At last, the poor girl decided to put her brother to bed, for he was only three years old and needed his sleep; then she sat down by his bed to wait for their mother. Every minute she suffered more and more; she couldn't help crying, and she kept saying to herself: