to be watching her.

One morning the postman brought her a letter, and as she had never
received one in her life before she was so upset by it that she was
obliged to sit down. Perhaps it was from him? But, as she could not
read, she sat anxious and trembling with that piece of paper, covered
with ink, in her hand. After a time, however, she put it into her
pocket, as she did not venture to confide her secret to any one. She
often stopped in her work to look at those lines written at regular
intervals, and which terminated in a signature, imagining vaguely that
she would suddenly discover their meaning, until at last, as she felt
half mad with impatience and anxiety, she went to the schoolmaster, who
told her to sit down and read to her as follows:

"MY DEAR DAUGHTER: I write to tell you that I am very ill. Our neighbor,
Monsieur Dentu, begs you to come, if you can.

"From your affectionate mother,

"CESAIRE DENTU, Deputy Mayor."

She did not say a word and went away, but as soon as she was alone her
legs gave way under her, and she fell down by the roadside and remained
there till night.

When she got back, she told the farmer her bad news, and he allowed her
to go home for as long as she liked, and promised to have her work done
by a charwoman and to take her back when she returned.

Her mother died soon after she got there, and the next day Rose gave
birth to a seven-months child, a miserable little skeleton, thin enough
to make anybody shudder, and which seemed to be suffering continually,
to judge from the painful manner in which it moved its poor little
hands, which were as thin as a crab's legs; but it lived for all that.
She said she was married, but could not be burdened with the child, so
she left it with some neighbors, who promised to take great care of it,
and she went back to the farm.

But now in her heart, which had been wounded so long, there arose
something like brightness, an unknown love for that frail little
creature which she had left behind her, though there was fresh suffering
in that very love, suffering which she felt every hour and every minute,
because she was parted from her child. What pained her most, however,
was the mad longing to kiss it, to press it in her arms, to feel the
warmth of its little body against her breast. She could not sleep at
night; she thought of it the whole day long, and in the evening, when
her work was done, she would sit in front of th