"He's in the city, I suppose?" queried the old woman.
Sister Anne nodded her head; and as Grenoble was the nearest city, they concluded that that was her destination.
After remaining several hours beneath that hospitable roof, she determined to resume her journey; but first she took one of the gold pieces from her little bag and offered it to the young woman.
"Keep it, my dear," said she; "we don't want anything for what we've done. You're so much to be pitied for not being able to talk, that you deserve to be taken in and put up everywhere for nothing; but, unluckily, everybody don't think so; there's some folks with hard, unfeeling hearts. You're going to the city, and you'll need all your money; they won't refuse it there."
Sister Anne expressed her gratitude as best she could. She kissed the young mother and her little nursling affectionately, then left the cottage, after they had pointed out the road to Grenoble, where they supposed that she was going.
The young woman did not travel rapidly; her pregnancy, her lack of practice in walking, and the bundle of clothing she carried, compelled her to stop frequently. She would sit down on a felled tree, a stone, or the bank of a ditch, and wait until her strength had returned and she could go on.
Sometimes other travellers passed her while she was resting. Those in carriages did not look at her; several men on horseback cast a glance at her; but the pedestrians stopped and said a few words to her. Receiving no reply, they went their way, some thinking that she was half-witted, others calling her impertinent because she did not deign to speak to them. Sister Anne gazed at them with an air of surprise, smiled at a peasant who proposed to take her on his horse, and lowered her eyes when another lost his temper because she did not answer him; the most curious ended by doing as the others did, and left her.
Toward nightfall, Sister Anne, having followed the directions given her, reached Grenoble. The sight of a large city was a source of fresh surprise, which increased with every step she took in the streets, where the people were dressed so much more handsomely than in her village. Everything surprised and bewildered her, and she trembled as she walked. The tall houses, the shops, the throng of people moving in every direction, the continual uproar, the strange way in which the passers-by gazed at her—everything tended to increase her confusion. Poor girl! how would it be if you were in Paris?
But it grew dark, and she must seek shelter for the night. She dared not enter any of the houses; they all seemed too fine; she was afraid that she would not be admitted. For a long while, she wandered at random through those unfamiliar streets; but she was tired out at last, and determined to knock somewhere. The poor child did not know what an inn was; she thought that she could obtain a place to sleep anywhere by paying for it.
She knocked at the door of a house of modest appearance. The door opened, and she entered trembling.