Despite all her efforts to be calm, Louise was still crying when Ernestine entered her room to ask her some question, before going to bed. Seeing that Louise’s face was wet with tears, her young mistress ran to her, and said with the most touching interest:
“Mon Dieu! crying, Louise! What’s the matter?”
“Oh! excuse me, mademoiselle. I know that I should not weep here, where everyone is so kind to me; but I could not help it!”
“Have you some reason for being unhappy? You would not cry like this for nothing. Louise, I insist on knowing why you were crying.”
“Well, mademoiselle, it is because, when I saw you in your mother’s arms to-night, the picture of the happiness you enjoy made me feel more keenly than ever the misery of my position. Oh! mademoiselle, it isn’t envy that makes me say it! I bless Heaven for making you so happy; but I could not help crying when I remembered that my mother never kissed me, that I shall never be able to throw my arms about her!”
“What’s that you say, my poor Louise? Doesn’t your mother love you?”
“It isn’t that, mademoiselle. But listen, I am going to tell you the truth, for I don’t know how to lie. And then, I don’t understand why I should make a mystery of it; you won’t be any less kind to me when you know that I am a poor girl, abandoned by her parents.”
“Is it possible? you haven’t any parents?”
“At all events, mademoiselle, I don’t know them.”
Thereupon Louise proceeded to tell Ernestine the story of how Nicole had been employed to take care of her, and of the kindness of the village people, who had kept her and treated her like their daughter, when they found that she was abandoned by her mother.