over, or ears of corn that the gleaners had neglected, or withered branches and twigs left by the wood-cutters for the poor.  Her nude, or semi-nude, arms grew rough in the burning sun, and more so still in the frosts.  Her pretty feet, so long as the fine season lasted, did not worry about being shod, and when November arrived with its terrors, Opportune took her little heeled sabots like the other country children.  M. and Madame Bontems wrote every six months to inquire if she were dead, and each time the answer came that the little Moor was in wonderful health.

The pastor of the neighbouring hamlet felt pity for this poor child, who was sometimes tormented by her companions on account of her colour.  The good cure even went so far as to declare, one day when there was a sermon, that the Virgin Mary, if one was to believe respectable books, was black from head to foot, which did not prevent her from being most beautiful in the sight of God and of men.

This good cure taught the gentle little orphan to read and pray.  He often came to her farm to visit her, and probably he knew her birth; he was in advanced age, and he died.  Then Opportune was placed with the Augustinian ladies of Meaux, where Bossuet charged himself with the task of instructing her well in religion and of making her take the veil.

The lot of this young victim of pride and vain prejudices touched me in spite of myself, and often I made a firm resolution to take her away from her oppressors and adopt her in spite of everybody.  The poor Queen, forgetting our rivalry, had taken all my children into her affections.  Why should not I have shown a just recognition by protecting an innocent little creature animated with her breath, life, and blood,—­a child whom she would have loved, I do not doubt, if she had been permitted to see and recognise her?  This idea grew so fixed in my, mind, that I resolved to see Opportune and do her some good, if I were able.

The interest of my position had led me once to assure myself of the neighbourhood of the King by certain little measures, not of curiosity but of surveillance.  I had put with M. Bontems a young man of intelligence and devotion, who, without passing due limits, kept me informed of many things which it is as well to know.

When I knew, without any doubt, the new abiding-place of Opportune, I secretly sent to the Augustinians of Meaux the young and intelligent sister of my woman of the bedchamber, who presented herself as an aspirant for the novitiate.  They were ignorant in the house of the relations of Mademoiselle Albanier with her sister Leontine Osselin, so that they wrote to each other, but by means of a cipher, and under seal, addressing their missives to a relative.

Albanier lost no time in informing us that the little Opportune had begun to give her her confidence, and that the nuns took it in very good part, believing them both equally called to take the veil in their convent.  Opportune knew, though in a somewhat vague way, to what great personage she owed her life, and it appeared that the good cure had informed her, out of compassion, before he left this world.  Albanier wrote to Leontine: