e a close jacket
of blue cotton, with white flowers on it, and a stuff petticoat; a white
handkerchief was tied round her head, and fastened under the chin. Her
countenance was pale and meagre, the features regular, and expressive of
resignation and great kindness. It would have been difficult to find a
better, a more courageous mother. With no resource but her labor, she
had succeeded, by unwearied energy, in bringing up not only her own
son Agricola, but also Gabriel, the poor deserted child, of whom, with
admirable devotion, she had ventured to take charge.

In her youth, she had, as it were, anticipated the strength of later
life, by twelve years of incessant toil, rendered lucrative by the most
violent exertions, and accompanied by such privations as made it almost
suicidal. Then (for it was a time of splendid wages, compared to the
present), by sleepless nights and constant labor, she contrived to earn
about two shillings (fifty sous) a day, and with this she managed to
educate her son and her adopted child.

At the end of these twelve years, her health was ruined, and her
strength nearly exhausted; but, at all events, her boys had wanted for
nothing, and had received such an education as children of the people
can obtain. About this time, M. Francois Hardy took Agricola as an
apprentice, and Gabriel prepared to enter the priest's seminary,
under the active patronage of M. Rodin, whose communications with the
confessor of Frances Baudoin had become very frequent about the year
1820.

This woman (whose piety had always been excessive) was one of those
simple natures, endowed with extreme goodness, whose self-denial
approaches to heroism, and who devote themselves in obscurity to a life
of martyrdom--pure and heavenly minds, in whom the instincts of the
heart supply the place of the intellect!

The only defect, or rather the necessary consequence of this extreme
simplicity of character, was the invincible determination she displayed
in yielding to the commands of her confessor, to whose influence she
had now for many years been accustomed to submit. She regarded this
influence as most venerable and sacred; no mortal power, no human
consideration, could have prevented her from obeying it. Did any dispute
arise on the subject, nothing could move her on this point; she opposed
to every argument a resistance entirely free from passion--mild as her
disposition, calm as her conscience--but, like the latter, not to
be