How can the good God be
so hard on a poor woman who is all alone in the world, how can He?" She
spoke hurriedly, her eyes cast down, with a deprecating air as of a wild
beast who is afraid. Her harsh voice became soft, and it seemed strange
to hear those tearful falsetto tones issuing from that big, bony frame,
of unusual strength and with coarse outlines, which seemed fitted for
violent action, and made to utter howls like a wolf.

"We should like to see your little one," said my friend.

I fancied she colored up. I may have been deceived. After a few moments
of silence, she said in a louder tone:

"What good will that do you?"

"Why do you not wish to show it to us?" replied my friend. "There are
many people to whom you will show it; you know whom I mean."

She gave a start, and resuming her natural voice, and giving free play
to her anger, she screamed:

"Was that why you came here? To insult me? Because my children are like
animals, tell me? You shall not see him, no, no, you shall not see
him! Go away, go away! I do not know why you all try to torment me like
that."

She walked over toward us, her hands on her hips. At the brutal tone of
her voice, a sort of moaning, or rather a mewing, the lamentable cry of
an idiot, came from the adjoining room. I shivered to the marrow of my
bones. We retreated before her.

"Take care, Devil," (they called her the Devil), said my friend, "take
care; some day you will get yourself into trouble through this."

She began to tremble, beside herself with fury, shaking her fist and
roaring:

"Be off with you! What will get me into trouble? Be off with you,
miscreants!"

She was about to attack us, but we fled, saddened at what we had seen.
When we got outside, my friend said:

"Well, you have seen her, what do you think of her?"

"Tell me the story of this brute," I replied.

And this is what he told me as we walked along the white high road, with
ripe crops on either side of it which rippled like the sea in the light
breeze that passed over them.

"This woman was one a servant on a farm. She was an honest girl, steady
and economical. She was never known to have an admirer, and never
suspected of any frailty. But she went astray, as so many do.

"She soon found herself in trouble, and was tortured with fear and
shame. Wishing to conceal her misfortune, she bound her body tightly
with a corset of her own invention, made of boards and cord. The more
she developed, t