My Friend,—­Oh! yes, my friend; for there is no one but you, Jacques, and my grandmother to love me.  God forgive me, but you are the only two persons whom I love, both alike, neither more nor less.  I was too little to know my dear mamma; but you, Jacques, and my grandmother, and my grandfather,—­God grant him heaven, for he suffered much from his ruin, which was mine,—­but you two who are left, I love you both, unhappy as I am.  Indeed, to know how much I love you, you will have to know how much I suffer; but I don’t wish that, it would grieve you too much. They speak to me as we would not speak to a dog; they treat me like the worst of girls; and yet I do examine myself before God, and I cannot find that I do wrong by them.  Before you sang to me the marriage song I saw the mercy of God in my sufferings; for I had prayed to him to take me from the world, and I felt so ill I said to myself, “God hears me!” But, Jacques, now you are here, I want to live and go back to Brittany, to my grandmamma who loves me, though they say she stole eight thousand francs of mine.  Jacques, is that so?  If they are mine could you get them!  But it is not true, for if my grandmother had eight thousand francs she would not live at Saint-Jacques.

I don’t want to trouble her last days, my kind, good grandmamma, with the knowledge of my troubles; she might die of it.  Ah! if she knew they made her grandchild scrub the pots and pans,—­she who used to say to me, when I wanted to help her after her troubles, “Don’t touch that, my darling; leave it—­leave it—­you will spoil your pretty fingers.”  Ah! my hands are never clean now.  Sometimes I can hardly carry the basket home from market, it cuts my arm.  Still I don’t think my cousins mean to be cruel; but it is their way always to scold, and it seems that I have no right to leave them.  My cousin Rogron is my guardian.  One day when I wanted to run away because I could not bear it, and told them so, my cousin Sylvie said the gendarmes would go after me, for the law was my master.  Oh!  I know now that cousins cannot take the place of father or mother, any more than the saints can take the place of God.

My poor Jacques, what do you suppose I could do with your money?  Keep it for our journey.  Oh! how I think of you and Pen-Hoel, and the big pong,—­that’s where we had our only happy days.  I shall have no more, for I feel I am going from bad to worse.  I am very ill, Jacques.  I have dreadful pains in my head, and in my bones, and back, which kill me, and I have no appetite except for horrid things,—­roots and leaves and such things.  Sometimes I cry, when I am all alone, for they won’t let me do anything I like if they know it, not even cry.  I have to hide to offer my tears to Him to whom we owe the mercies which we call afflictions.  It must have been He who gave you the blessed thought to come and sing the marriage song beneath my window.  Ah!  Jacques, my cousin heard you, and she said I had a lover.  If you wish to be my lover, love me well.  I promise to love you always, as I did in the past, and to be
     Your faithful servant,
Pierrette Lorrain.

  You will love me always, won’t you?