Léodgard could not help opening his own arms to receive the child; and when little Blanche reached them, he could not resist the temptation to press her to his heart and kiss her.
"Oh! monsieur," she said, "mademoiselle saw you in the distance and recognized you at once; then I could not possibly hold her back! She began to run toward you, crying: 'The gentleman!'—You must have taken her fancy, for she doesn't go to everybody like that!"
"Is—is the child's mother with you to-day?" the count asked hesitatingly.
"No, monsieur; madame la comtesse is better; but she isn't strong enough to go out yet."
Léodgard seemed more at ease, and he kissed once more the child whom he was entitled to call his daughter, but to whom he said simply:
"Do you know that you are very pretty?"
"Oh, yes!" the child replied, with a smile.
"But it isn't enough to be pretty," said the nurse. "Mademoiselle knows that she must be good and obedient too, or else she would be ugly."
At that moment a poor, half-clad little boy, whose pinched features denoted privation and suffering, stopped a few feet from the bench and held out his hand to ask alms.