However, Pauline cried yet louder than before when the old maid took hold of her hand.  Mademoiselle Saget at first led her towards the gate of the square; but before she got there she seemed to change her mind; for she sat down at the end of a bench and tried to pacify the child.

“Come, now, give over crying, or the policeman will lock you up,” she said to Pauline.  “I’ll take you home safely.  You know me, don’t you?  I’m a good friend.  Come, come, let me see how prettily you can smile.”

The child, however, was choking with sobs and wanted to go away.  Mademoiselle Saget thereupon quietly allowed her to continue weeping, reserving further remarks till she should have finished.  The poor little creature was shivering all over; her petticoats and stockings were wet through, and as she wiped her tears away with her dirty hands she plastered the whole of her face with earth to the very tips of her ears.  When at last she became a little calmer the old maid resumed in a caressing tone:  “Your mamma isn’t unkind, is she?  She’s very fond of you, isn’t she?”

“Oh, yes, indeed,” replied Pauline, still sobbing.

“And your papa, he’s good to you, too, isn’t he?  He doesn’t flog you, or quarrel with your mother, does he?  What do they talk about when they go to bed?”

“Oh, I don’t know.  I’m asleep then.”

“Do they talk about your cousin Florent?”

“I don’t know.”

Mademoiselle Saget thereupon assumed a severe expression, and got up as if about to go away.

“I’m afraid you are a little story-teller,” she said.  “Don’t you know that it’s very wicked to tell stories?  I shall go away and leave you, if you tell me lies, and then Muche will come back and pinch you.”

Pauline began to cry again at the threat of being abandoned.  “Be quiet, be quiet, you wicked little imp!” cried the old maid shaking her.  “There, there, now, I won’t go away.  I’ll buy you a stick of barley-sugar; yes, a stick of barley-sugar!  So you don’t love your cousin Florent, eh?”

“No, mamma says he isn’t good.”

“Ah, then, so you see your mother does say something.”

“One night when I was in bed with Mouton—­I sleep with Mouton sometimes, you know—­I heard her say to father, ’Your brother has only escaped from the galleys to take us all back with him there.’”

Mademoiselle Saget gave vent to a faint cry, and sprang to her feet, quivering all over.  A ray of light had just broken upon her.  Then without a word she caught hold of Pauline’s hand and made her run till they reached the pork shop, her lips meanwhile compressed by an inward smile, and her eyes glistening with keen delight.  At the corner of the Rue Pirouette, Muche, who had so far followed them, amused at seeing the girl running along in her muddy stockings, prudently disappeared.

Lisa was now in a state of terrible alarm; and when she saw her daughter so bedraggled and limp, her consternation was such that she turned the child round and round, without even thinking of beating her.