“One day the little orphan asked for bread at the countess’ chateau, and they kept the child for her mother’s sake.  She was to be waiting-maid some day to the daughter of the house, and was brought up to this end.  Her young mistress was married five years later; but meanwhile the poor little thing was the victim of all the caprices of wealthy people, whose beneficence for the most part is not to be depended upon even while it lasts.  They are generous by fits and starts—­sometimes patrons, sometimes friends, sometimes masters, in this way they falsify the already false position of the poor children in whom they interest themselves, and trifle with the hearts, the lives, and futures of their protegees, whom they regard very lightly.  From the first La Fosseuse became almost a companion to the young heiress; she was taught to read and write, and her future mistress sometimes amused herself by giving her music lessons.  She was treated sometimes as a lady’s companion, sometimes as a waiting-maid, and in this way they made an incomplete being of her.  She acquired a taste for luxury and for dress, together with manners ill-suited to her real position.  She has been roughly schooled by misfortune since then, but the vague feeling that she is destined for a higher lot has not been effaced in her.

“A day came at last, however, a fateful day for the poor girl, when the young countess (who was married by this time) discovered La Fosseuse arrayed in one of her ball dresses, and dancing before a mirror.  La Fosseuse was no longer anything but a waiting-maid, and the orphan girl, then sixteen years of age, was dismissed without pity.  Her idle ways plunged her once more into poverty; she wandered about begging by the roadside, and working at times as I have told you.  Sometimes she thought of drowning herself, sometimes also of giving herself to the first comer; she spent most of her time thinking dark thoughts, lying by the side of a wall in the sun, with her face buried in the grass, and passers-by would sometimes throw a few halfpence to her, simply because she asked them for nothing.  One whole year she spent in a hospital at Annecy after heavy toil in the harvest field; she had only undertaken the work in the hope that it would kill her, and that so she might die.  You should hear her herself when she speaks of her feelings and ideas during this time of her life; her simple confidences are often very curious.

“She came back to the little town at last, just about the time when I decided to take up my abode in it.  I wanted to understand the minds of the people beneath my rule; her character struck me, and I made a study of it; then when I became aware of her physical infirmities, I determined to watch over her.  Perhaps in time she may grow accustomed to work with her needle, but, whatever happens, I have secured her future.”

“She is quite alone up there!” said Genestas.

“No.  One of my herdswomen sleeps in the house,” the doctor answered.  “You did not see my farm buildings which lie behind the house.  They are hidden by the pine-trees.  Oh! she is quite safe.  Moreover, there are no mauvais sujets here in the valley; if any come among us by any chance, I send them into the army, where they make excellent solders.”