to shine at the Emperor’s Court, while I stayed in our village till 1809, waiting for four years for a suitable match; they brought me away, to be sure, but only to make me a work-woman, and to offer me clerks or captains like coalheavers for a husband!  I have had their leavings for twenty-six years!—­And now like the story in the Old Testament, the poor relation has one ewe-lamb which is all her joy, and the rich man who has flocks covets the ewe-lamb and steals it—­without warning, without asking.  Adeline has meanly robbed me of my happiness!—­Adeline!  Adeline!  I will see you in the mire, and sunk lower than myself!—­And Hortense—­I loved her, and she has cheated me.  The Baron.—­No, it is impossible.  Tell me again what is really true of all this.”

“Be calm, my dear child.”

“Valerie, my darling, I will be calm,” said the strange creature, sitting down again.  “One thing only can restore me to reason; give me proofs.”

“Your Cousin Hortense has the Samson group—­here is a lithograph from it published in a review.  She paid for it out of her pocket-money, and it is the Baron who, to benefit his future son-in-law, is pushing him, getting everything for him.”

“Water!—­water!” said Lisbeth, after glancing at the print, below which she read, “A group belonging to Mademoiselle Hulot d’Ervy.”  “Water! my head is burning, I am going mad!”

Madame Marneffe fetched some water.  Lisbeth took off her cap, unfastened her black hair, and plunged her head into the basin her new friend held for her.  She dipped her forehead into it several times, and checked the incipient inflammation.  After this douche she completely recovered her self-command.

“Not a word,” said she to Madame Marneffe as she wiped her face—­“not a word of all this.—­You see, I am quite calm; everything is forgotten.  I am thinking of something very different.”

“She will be in Charenton to-morrow, that is very certain,” thought Madame Marneffe, looking at the old maid.

“What is to be done?” Lisbeth went on.  “You see, my angel, there is nothing for it but to hold my tongue, bow my head, and drift to the grave, as all water runs to the river.  What could I try to do?  I should like to grind them all—­Adeline, her daughter, and the Baron —­all to dust!  But what can a poor relation do against a rich family?  It would be the story of the earthen pot and the iron pot.”

“Yes; you are right,” said Valerie.  “You can only pull as much hay as you can to your side of the manger.  That is all the upshot of life in Paris.”

“Besides,” said Lisbeth, “I shall soon die, I can tell you, if I lose that boy to whom I fancied I could always be a mother, and with whom I counted on living all my days——­”

There were tears in her eyes, and she paused.  Such emotion in this woman made of sulphur and flame, made Valerie shudder.