ause of his
mirth, she whose intelligence was so limited that she perhaps expected
to see even the picture of her nephew!

It was two weeks later that Liebard came into the kitchen at
market-time, and handed her a letter from her brother-in-law. As neither
of them could read, she called upon her mistress.

Madame Aubain, who was counting the stitches of her knitting, laid her
work down beside her, opened the letter, started, and in a low tone
and with a searching look said: "They tell you of a--misfortune. Your
nephew--"

He had died. The letter told nothing more.

Felicite dropped on a chair, leaned her head against the back, and
closed her lids; presently they grew pink. Then, with drooping head,
inert hands and staring eyes she repeated at intervals:

"Poor little chap! poor little chap!"

Liebard watched her and sighed. Madame Aubain was trembling.

She proposed to the girl to go to see her sister in Trouville.

With a single motion, Felicite replied that it was not necessary.

There was a silence. Old Liebard thought it about time for him to take
leave.

Then Felicite uttered:

"They have no sympathy, they do not care!"

Her head fell forward again, and from time to time, mechanically, she
toyed with the long knitting-needles on the work-table.

Some women passed through the yard with a basket of wet clothes.

When she saw them through the window, she suddenly remembered her own
wash; as she had soaked it the day before, she must go and rinse it now.
So she arose and left the room.

Her tub and her board were on the bank of the Toucques. She threw a heap
of clothes on the ground, rolled up her sleeves and grasped her bat;
and her loud pounding could be heard in the neighbouring gardens. The
meadows were empty, the breeze wrinkled the stream, at the bottom of
which were long grasses that looked like the hair of corpses floating
in the water. She restrained her sorrow and was very brave until night;
but, when she had gone to her own room, she gave way to it, burying her
face in the pillow and pressing her two fists against her temples.

A long while afterward, she learned through Victor's captain, the
circumstances which surrounded his death. At the hospital they had bled
him too much, treating him for yellow fever. Four doctors held him at
one time. He died almost instantly, and the chief surgeon had said:

"Here goes another one!"

His parents had always treated him barbarously; she preferred