ad suffered so
much seemed to her now a Paradise, in which she would be content to
dwell forever.

She rushed into the cave. The sunlight illumined only a small portion of
the grotto; the rest of it was veiled in shadow. Tiepoletta glanced
around her and uttered a cry of joy. In one dim corner she discerned a
little straw, enough, however, to serve as a bed. She laid her sleeping
infant upon it, covered the child with her mantle; then gathering up a
few bits of bread and some half-picked bones which had been left upon
the floor of the cave, she proceeded to appease her hunger. When this
was satisfied, she ran to the river, quenched her thirst, bathed her
sore and bleeding feet, and then returned to the cave after walking
about awhile in the sunlight to warm herself. Flinging herself down upon
the straw, she covered herself with her tattered garments as best she
could, and drawing her child to her gave it the breast. The little one
roused from its slumber uttered a moan and applied its pale lips to the
bosom upon which it was dependent for sustenance; but it soon exhausted
the supply of milk, whose abundance had been greatly diminished by the
fatigues of the preceding night, and again fell asleep.

Then, in the midst of this profound silence and solitude, Tiepoletta,
providentially rescued from her persecutors, experienced an intense joy
that made her entirely forget the hardships she had just undergone.
There were undoubtedly new misfortunes in store for her. She must,
without delay, find some way to earn her own living and that of her
child; but their wants were few. Birds and Bohemians are accustomed to
scanty fare. She could work: she was accustomed to labor: she was inured
to fatigue. Besides, who would be so hard-hearted as to refuse her bread
when she said: "I am willing to earn it." This artless creature, whose
ambition was so modest, consoled her troubled mind with these hopes, and
trembled only when she thought of those from whom she had just fled. No
one had ever told Tiepoletta that there was a God. She did not know how
to pray; nevertheless, in the refuge she had found, her soul lifted
itself up in fervent adoration to the unknown God whose power had
protected her, though she was ignorant of His existence and of His name.
It was in the midst of this feverish exaltation of spirit that sleep
overcame her before she had even thought to ask herself what she should
do on awaking.

For several hours she slumber