The stove-fitter’s wife signed to her eldest girl, who ran off.  Ten minutes later she returned, leading by the hand a child of fifteen and a half, a beauty of the Italian type.  Mademoiselle Judici inherited from her father that ivory skin which, rather yellow by day, is by artificial light of lily-whiteness; eyes of Oriental beauty, form, and brilliancy, close curling lashes like black feathers, hair of ebony hue, and that native dignity of the Lombard race which makes the foreigner, as he walks through Milan on a Sunday, fancy that every porter’s daughter is a princess.

Atala, told by the stove-fitter’s daughter that she was to meet the great lady of whom she had heard so much, had hastily dressed in a black silk gown, a smart little cape, and neat boots.  A cap with a cherry-colored bow added to the brilliant effect of her coloring.  The child stood in an attitude of artless curiosity, studying the Baroness out of the corner of her eye, for her palsied trembling puzzled her greatly.

Adeline sighed deeply as she saw this jewel of womanhood in the mire of prostitution, and determined to rescue her to virtue.

“What is your name, my dear?”

“Atala, madame.”

“And can you read and write?”

“No, madame; but that does not matter, as monsieur can.”

“Did your parents ever take you to church?  Have you been to your first Communion?  Do you know your Catechism?”

“Madame, papa wanted to make me do something of the kind you speak of, but mamma would not have it—­”

“Your mother?” exclaimed the Baroness.  “Is she bad to you, then?”

“She was always beating me.  I don’t know why, but I was always being quarreled over by my father and mother—­”

“Did you ever hear of God?” cried the Baroness.

The girl looked up wide-eyed.

“Oh, yes, papa and mamma often said ‘Good God,’ and ‘In God’s name,’ and ‘God’s thunder,’” said she, with perfect simplicity.

“Then you never saw a church?  Did you never think of going into one?”

“A church?—­Notre-Dame, the Pantheon?—­I have seen them from a distance, when papa took me into town; but that was not very often.  There are no churches like those in the Faubourg.”

“Which Faubourg did you live in?”

“In the Faubourg.”

“Yes, but which?”

“In the Rue de Charonne, madame.”

The inhabitants of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine never call that notorious district other than the Faubourg.  To them it is the one and only Faubourg; and manufacturers generally understand the words as meaning the Faubourg Saint-Antoine.

“Did no one ever tell you what was right or wrong?”

“Mamma used to beat me when I did not do what pleased her.”

“But did you not know that it was very wicked to run away from your father and mother to go to live with an old man?”

Atala Judici gazed at the Baroness with a haughty stare, but made no reply.