“Not much, to be sure, but something!  I should have liked a carrot or two, but in these hard times that would have been extravagant.  And, after all, there is some credit in making good soup out of nothing at all.  If one could run here and there in the market—­’A pound of your best veal, monsieur’—­’A bunch of those fine turnips, and a stick of celery, madame’—­well, truth obliges me to admit that it is possible the soup would have a finer flavour, but there would not be the satisfaction of seeing it grow out of a few onions a crust of bread, and a pinch of salt.  And that is a satisfaction which I am favoured with tolerably often.  Well, Perine, my child, it interests you—­this occupation—­does it not?  Do you think you will ever learn to make soup?”

The girl nodded many times.

“Perine eat it,” she said.

“Listen to her!” Marie exclaimed, patting her cheek approvingly.  “And that any one should say she has no sense!  She knows as well as any of us, that the great thing in soup is to eat it with an appetite, and so she puts together two and two—­”

She was interrupted by the girl.

“Four!” she said abruptly.

Madame Didier, instead of showing astonishment, began to laugh.

“There she is with her numbers again!  How strange it is that she should never forget a number or make a mistake in a sum!  In taking away or adding together one can’t puzzle her.  I don’t mean that I can’t,” she continued, apparently addressing no one in particular, “because I am a poor ignorant woman; but wiser people than I. Now, Perine, you shall have your lesson.  See here, I shall stand near my bed, and you over there with your face to the wall.  Do you understand?”

The girl nodded, and stumbling along towards the place indicated, contrived on her way to knock down and break into atoms a white dish.

“Oh, the unfortunate child!” cried Marie, darting forward.  “Another! and it was my last!  How many more things will you destroy!”

At this reproach the guilt-stricken Perine covered her face and howled aloud, and Madame Didier’s momentary anger passed.

“There, don’t cry!” she said, “crying does no good, and it was an accident.  You’ll be more careful another time, won’t you?  Try to move gently, and look where you go, or some day you will hurt yourself.  At present let me see you stand well against the wall, so!  I put on the soup—­and we are ready.”

As she said these words she went back to the alcove.  And then a strange thing happened.  For from behind the gaily-figured chintz, there issued a strange hoarse whisper, which caused so little astonishment to Madame Didier, that she merely echoed the words aloud.  Apparently this was Perine’s lesson.

“Seven six nine, and eight five four,” repeated Madame Didier.

The answer from the girl came instantaneously: 

“Sixteen hundred and twenty-three.”