He starts home then at once. You may imagine what joy for the king and the queen. They were constantly trembling lest they should hear that their dearly loved son had been hanged. They did not know what to do for joy. He told them how he had done penance, and that without doubt the good God had pardoned him; and how his old master wished him to marry his daughter. He does so, and all live happily and die well.
Louise Lanusse.
The Slandered and Despised Young Girl.
Like many others of us in the world, there was a mother and her daughter. They were very poor, and the daughter said that she wished to go out to service, in order to do something for her mother. The mother will not listen to it; what would become of her without her daughter? She prefers to be poor with her to being rich alone. The young girl stays at home. She used to go out as needlewoman; but suddenly her mother falls ill, and quickly she dies.
This poor young girl had the deepest sorrow, and she continued to go out to work as before. One day, while she was at work in a house, some acquaintance came and said to them—
“What! you have this young girl here to work! She is a bad girl; she is not at all what she ought to be. You should not take her.”
In the evening they give her her day’s wages, and say that they do not want her any more. She goes to another house, and there the same thing happens. Some people come and say in the same way—
“You have that young girl to work! She will come to a bad end, that girl will. She is even a thief; do not have her again.”
In the evening they give her her day’s wages, and say to her that they do not want her any more. No one asked her to work any more, and she remained at home. By charity and pity, some neighbours, without any necessity, let her come to work for them, because they were pained to see her distress. But there, too, someone comes and says,