"Well, well!" said the farmer's wife; "she don't want me to speak ill of him! she still loves him! That's just like a woman: always ready to make excuses for the man that does 'em the most harm. But don't you be worried about the future, my child; stay with us; we'll love you like our own daughter and take good care of you. You're out of reach of want forever here."
Sister Anne pressed her hand affectionately, but her eyes refused to make a promise which her heart had no intention of keeping. Frédéric was still supreme in that ardent heart, and the girl did not renounce the hope of finding him.
A short time after the stranger's departure, Sister Anne, remembering that he had given her a paper, took it from the purse and carried it to the farmer's wife, being anxious to know what was written on it. The woman read: Comte de Montreville, Rue de Provence, Paris. There was nothing else on the paper, and Sister Anne had no suspicion that it was Frédéric's father's name, for her lover had never mentioned his family name in her presence. But she was overjoyed when the farmer's wife read Paris; she tried to make her understand that that was where she wanted to go; then she carefully replaced the paper in the purse.
"That's the gentleman's address," said her hostess; "I tell you, he ain't like most men; he's grateful, and he won't ever forget what you did for him. I'm sure he'd give you a kind reception, if you should go to Paris; but what would you do in that big city? Take my advice, my child, and stay with us; you'll be happier here."
Sister Anne was overjoyed to possess that paper with the name of the city to which she meant to go some day. With it, she could make herself understood, and she thanked heaven for that gift, which would enable her to find that wonderful Paris where she hoped to find her lover as well.
After she had been two months at the farm, Sister Anne brought a son into the world. With what delirious joy did she contemplate her child! with what transports did she listen to his first cries! One must have been a mother to understand the perfect bliss of that moment. Already she fancied that she could recognize Frédéric's features in her child's; she gazed at him incessantly and covered him with kisses; her son was never out of her arms; weak as she was, she nursed him herself. The farmer's wife did not try to thwart her desire, for it is a source of ever-recurring delight to a mother, and Sister Anne seemed to enjoy it more keenly than another. She was so proud and happy when she held her child to her breast, that she forgot her sorrows for the moment. She did not forget Frédéric, but her heart was no longer oppressed by sombre melancholy; the sight of her child often brought a smile to her lips; she felt that for her son a mother can endure everything.
Some weeks after her confinement, Sister Anne manifested a wish to resume her journey; but the good people at the farm remonstrated with her.
"Can you think of such a thing," said the farmer's wife, "as starting on a journey, with a child at the breast? Remember that you don't expose your own life only, but his too. Do you suppose that if you set out in search of new dangers and fatigue, he'll be able to get nourishment from your breast? No, it isn't possible; the child will soon get sick and die, if you persist in your plan."
Endanger her son's life! that thought made the dumb girl shudder. There was no sacrifice she would not make for her child; it was a very great one to postpone her journey; but what the farmer's wife had said instantly decided her to remain at the farm until her son could no longer feel the effects of his mother's trials and sorrows.
"Good, good! you are going to stay," said the good woman, reading in Sister Anne's eyes that she would not insist. "That's right, my child; you are sensible. In a year, or a year and a half, if your son is strong enough, then we'll see; but till then you mustn't think of travelling."