Madelon’s fixed idea had returned to her with redoubled force since her illness.  Her one failure had only added intensity to her purpose since her first sense of discouragement had passed away; there was something in the child’s nature that refused to acknowledge defeat as such, and she was only eager to begin again.  Our poor little Madelon, with her strange experiences and inexperiences, her untutored faiths and instincts, shaking off all rule, ignorant of all conventionalities, only bent, amidst difficulties, and obstacles, and delays, on steadily working towards one fixed and well-defined end—­surely, tried by any of the received laws of polite society, concerning correct, well-educated young ladies of thirteen, she would be found sadly wanting.  Shall we blame her? or shall we not rather, with a kindly compassion, try for a while to understand from what point of view she had learnt to look at life, and to arrive at some comprehension of, and sympathy with her.

In the meantime, though it was evident she could do nothing till she was well again, an old perplexity was beginning to trouble Madelon; what was she to do without money?  Once, a strange chance—­which, with a touch of convent superstition that had been grafted on her mind, she was half disposed to look upon as miraculous—­had provided the requisite sum, but the most sanguine hopes could hardly point to the repetition of such a miracle or chance, and during long hours, when Jeanne-Marie was attending to her customers below, or sitting at her side, knitting, Madelon’s brain was for ever working on this old problem that had proved so hard before, when she sat thinking it out in the convent cell.  But at any rate she was free here; she might come and go without scaling walls, or fear of pursuing nuns; and then could she not earn some money?  The thought was an inspiration to Madelon—­yes, when she was strong and well enough, she would work day and night till she had gained it.  If she were only well.

It was about this time that Jeanne-Marie perceived a change in her patient, hitherto so still and resigned, a certain uneasy restlessness and longing to be up and about again.

“Jeanne-Marie, do you think I shall soon be well?” she would ask again and again; “do you think the doctor will soon let me get up?”

“You will never be well if you toss about like that,” Jeanne-Marie said grimly, one evening; “lie still, and I will tell you some stories.”

She sat down by her, and, as she knitted, told her one story after another, fairy-tales for the most part, old stories that Madelon knew by heart from her early studies in the German picture-books and similar works.  But Jeanne-Marie told them well, and somehow they seemed invested with a new interest for Madelon, as she half unconsciously contrasted her own experiences with those of the heroes and heroines, and found in their adventures some far-fetched parallel to her own.  But then their experiences were so