“I beg your pardon, my dear girl,” said Rodin, as if recalling his recollections, and addressing himself to Mother Bunch, “I beg your pardon—­but I think—­if I am not deceived—­did you not go a few days since to St. Mary’s Convent, hard by?”

“Yes, sir.”

“No doubt, it was you.  Where then was my head?” cried Rodin.  “It was you—­I should have guessed it sooner.”

“Of what do you speak, sir?” asked Adrienne.

“Oh! you are right, my dear young lady,” said Rodin, pointing to the hunchback.  “She has indeed a noble heart, such as we seek.  If you knew with what dignity, with what courage this poor girl, who was out of work and, for her, to want work is to want everything—­if you knew, I say, with what dignity she rejected the shameful wages that the superior of the convent was unprincipled enough to offer, on condition of her acting as a spy in a family where it was proposed to place her.”

“Oh, that is infamous!” cried Mdlle. de Cardoville, with disgust.  “Such a proposal to this poor girl—­to her!”

“Madame,” said Mother Bunch, bitterly, “I had no work, I was poor, they did not know me—­and they thought they might propose anything to the likes of me.”

“And I tell you,” said Rodin, “that it was a double baseness on the part of the superior, to offer such temptation to misery, and it was doubly noble in you to refuse.”

“Sir,” said the sewing-girl, with modest embarrassment.

“Oh!  I am not to be intimidated,” resumed Rod in.  “Praise or blame, I speak out roughly what I think.  Ask this dear young lady,” he added, with a glance at Adrienne.  “I tell you plainly, that I think as well of you as she does herself.”

“Believe me, dear,” said Adrienne, “there are some sorts of praise which honor, recompense, and encourage; and M. Rodin’s is of the number.  I know it,—­yes, I know it.”

“Nay, my dear young lady, you must not ascribe to me all the honor of this judgment.”

“How so, sir?”

“Is not this dear girl the adopted sister of Agricola Baudoin, the gallant workman, the energetic and popular poet?  Is not the affection of such a man the best of guarantees, and does it not enable us to judge, as it were, by the label?” added Rodin, with a smile.

“You are right, sir,” said Adrienne; “for, before knowing this dear girl, I began to feel deeply interested in her, from the day that her adopted brother spoke to me about her.  He expressed himself with so much warmth, so much enthusiasm, that I at once conceived an esteem for the person capable of inspiring so noble an attachment.”