of hospital in
which they sadly expected to end their days, Pierrette, being young
and proud, suffered so terribly at living there on charity that she was
thankful when she heard she had rich relations. When Brigaut, the son of
her mother's friend the major, and the companion of her childhood,
who was learning his trade as a cabinet-maker at Nantes, heard of
her departure he offered her the money to pay her way to Paris in
the diligence,--sixty francs, the total of his _pour-boires_ as an
apprentice, slowly amassed, and accepted by Pierrette with the sublime
indifference of true affection, showing that in a like case she herself
would be affronted by thanks.

Brigaut was in the habit of going every Sunday to Saint-Jacques to play
with Pierrette and try to console her. The vigorous young workman knew
the dear delight of bestowing a complete and devoted protection on
an object involuntarily chosen by his heart. More than once he and
Pierrette, sitting on Sundays in a corner of the garden, had embroidered
the veil of the future with their youthful projects; the apprentice,
armed with his plane, scoured the world to make their fortune, while
Pierrette waited.

In October, 1824, when the child had completed her eleventh year,
she was entrusted by the two old people and by Brigaut, all three
sorrowfully sad, to the conductor of the diligence from Nantes to
Paris, with an entreaty to put her safely on the diligence from Paris
to Provins and to take good care of her. Poor Brigaut! he ran like a dog
after the coach looking at his dear Pierrette as long as he was able.
In spite of her signs he ran over three miles, and when at last he was
exhausted his eyes, wet with tears, still followed her. She, too, was
crying when she saw him no longer running by her, and putting her head
out of the window she watched him, standing stock-still and looking
after her, as the lumbering vehicle disappeared.

The Lorrains and Brigaut knew so little of life that the girl had not
a penny when she arrived in Paris. The conductor, to whom she had
mentioned her rich friends, paid her expenses at the hotel, and made
the conductor of the Provins diligence pay him, telling him to take good
care of the girl and to see that the charges were paid by the family,
exactly as though she were a case of goods. Four days after her
departure from Nantes, about nine o'clock of a Monday night, a kind old
conductor of the Messageries-royales, took Pierrette by the