his cage, hanging to the wire bars with his head down. He had probably
died of congestion. But she believed that he had been poisoned, and
although she had no proofs whatever, her suspicion rested on Fabu.

She wept so sorely that her mistress said: "Why don't you have him
stuffed?"

She asked the advice of the chemist, who had always been kind to the
bird.

He wrote to Havre for her. A certain man named Fellacher consented to do
the work. But, as the diligence driver often lost parcels entrusted to
him, Felicite resolved to take her pet to Honfleur herself.

Leafless apple-trees lined the edges of the road. The ditches were
covered with ice. The dogs on the neighbouring farms barked; and
Felicite, with her hands beneath her cape, her little black sabots and
her basket, trotted along nimbly in the middle of the sidewalk. She
crossed the forest, passed by the Haut-Chene, and reached Saint-Gatien.

Behind her, in a cloud of dust and impelled by the steep incline, a
mail-coach drawn by galloping horses advanced like a whirlwind. When he
saw a woman in the middle of the road, who did not get out of the
way, the driver stood up in his seat and shouted to her and so did
the postilion, while the four horses, which he could not hold back,
accelerated their pace; the two leaders were almost upon her; with
a jerk of the reins he threw them to one side, but, furious at the
incident, he lifted his big whip and lashed her from her head to her
feet with such violence that she fell to the ground unconscious.

Her first thought, when she recovered her senses, was to open the
basket. Loulou was unharmed. She felt a sting on her right cheek; when
she took her hand away it was red, for the blood was flowing.

She sat down on a pile of stones, and sopped her cheek with her
handkerchief; then she ate a crust of bread she had put in her basket,
and consoled herself by looking at the bird.

Arriving at the top of Ecquemanville, she saw the lights of Honfleur
shining in the distance like so many stars; further on, the ocean spread
out in a confused mass. Then a weakness came over her; the misery of her
childhood, the disappointment of her first love, the departure of her
nephew, the death of Virginia; all these things came back to her at
once, and, rising like a swelling tide in her throat, almost choked her.

Then she wished to speak to the captain of the vessel, and without
stating what she was sending, she gave him some instructio