inmates of the
neighboring village. Pierre led me to a large flat stone, which had once
been a horse-block, standing at a safe distance from this hovel, and I
laid down my basket upon it. Then he rang his hand-bell noisily, and the
next instant was scampering back along the road.

But I could not run away. The desolate, plague-stricken place had a
dismal fascination for me. I wondered what manner of persons could dwell
in it; and, as I lingered, I saw the low door opened, and a thin,
spectral figure standing in the gloom within, but delaying to cross the
mouldering door-sill as long as I remained in sight. In another minute
Pierre had rushed back for me, and dragged me away with all his boyish
strength and energy.

"Madame," he said, in angry remonstrance, "you are disobeying Monsieur
le Cure. If you catch the fever, and die while you are a pagan, it will
be impossible for you to go to heaven. It would be a hundred times
better for me to die, who have taken my first communion."

"But who lives there?" I asked.

"They are very wicked people," he answered, emphatically; "no one goes
near them, except Monsieur le Cure, and he would go and nurse the devil
himself, if he had the fever in his parish. They became wicked before my
time, and Monsieur le Cure has forbidden us to speak of them with
rancor, so we do not speak of them at all."

I walked back in sadness, wondering at this misery and solitariness by
the side of the healthy, simple society of the lonely village, with its
interwoven family interests. As I passed through the street again, I
heard the click of the hand-looms in most of the dwellings, and saw the
pale-faced weavers, in their white and tasselled caps, here a man and
there a woman, look after me, while they suspended their work for a
moment. Every door was open; the children ran in and out of any house,
playing together as if they were of one family; the women were knitting
in companies under the eaves. Who were these pariahs, whose name even
was banished from every tongue? I must ask the cure himself.

But I had no opportunity that day. When I returned to the sick-ward, I
found Monsieur Laurentie pacing slowly up and down the long room, with
Jean's little son in his arms, to whom he was singing in a low, soft
voice, scarcely louder than a whisper. His eyes, when they met mine,
were glistening with tears, and he shook his head mournfully.

I went on to look at Minima. She was lying quiet, too weak and