“I never had one,” said la Fleuriotte bruskly. “The poor child hasn’t any father. As the saying is, ‘to each his sorrow.’ There, your bed is made, and here are two or three potatoes which are left over from supper—it’s all I have to offer you.”
She was interrupted by a childish voice coming from a dark closet, separated from the main room by a board partition.
“Good night!” she repeated. “I must go look up the little one—she’s crying. Have a good night’s sleep!”
She took the lamp and went to the adjacent closet, leaving la Bretonne in darkness.
Soon she was stretched upon her bed of heather. After having eaten, she tried to close her eyes, but sleep would not come. Through the partition she heard la Fleuriotte talking softly with her baby, whom the arrival of the stranger had awakened, and who did not wish to go to sleep again. La Fleuriotte petted her, she embraced her with caressing words—naïve expressions which strangely stirred la Bretonne.
The outburst of tenderness awakened a confused instinct of motherhood buried deep in the soul of that girl who had once been condemned for having stifled her new-born babe. La Bretonne reflected that “if things had not gone badly” with her, her own child would have been just as old as this little girl. At that thought, and at the sound of the childish voice, she shuddered in her inmost soul; something tender and loving was born in that embittered heart, and she felt an overwhelming need for tears.
“Come, my pet,” said la Fleuriotte, “hurry off to sleep. If you are good, I’ll take you to-morrow to the fête of Saint Catherine.”
“Saint Catherine’s—that’s the fête for little girls, isn’t it, Mamma?”
“Yes, my own.”
“Is it true, then, that on this day Saint Catherine gives playthings to the children?”