iree-des-Anges used to
watch her, and would curl her lip as she watched. She was not as
quick-tempered as she used to be when she was a novice, but she was
full of life still and full of fun. Every evening we used to meet in
our room, and she would make me laugh at her remarks at what had been
going on during the day. Sometimes my laughter ended in a sob. Then
she used to put her hands together as the saints do in the pictures,
raise her eyes and say, "Oh, how I wish that your sorrow would leave
you." Then she would kneel on the ground and pray, and I often used to
go to sleep before she got up again.

Work in the kitchen was very hard. I used to help Melanie polish up
the coppers, and wash the tiled floors. She did most of the work
herself. She was as strong as a man, and was always ready to help me.
As soon as she found that I was tired, she used to force me to sit down
on a chair, and would say smilingly, "Recreation time." A few days
after I had arrived, she reminded me of the difficulties she used to
have in learning her catechism.

She had not forgotten that during a whole season I had spent all my
recreation time trying to teach her to learn it by heart. And now she
delighted in making me rest.

Veronique's work was the preparation of the vegetables, and she also
took the meat in from the butcher. She used to stand stiffly by the
scales until the butcher's boys put the meat on. She was always
grumbling at them, saying that the meat was cut too small or cut too
big. The butcher boys used to get angry with her and were rude to her
sometimes, and Sister Desiree-des-Anges told me at last to take the
meat in instead of her. She came to the scales just the same next day;
but I was there with Sister Desiree-des-Anges, who was telling me how
to weigh the meat.

One morning one of the two butchers looked at me and spoke my name.
Sister Desiree-des-Anges and I looked at the butcher boy in surprise.
He was a new one, but I soon recognized him. He was the eldest son of
Jean le Rouge. He was delighted to see me again, and told me that his
parents had got a good place at the Lost Ford. He himself didn't care
about working in the fields, and had found work with a butcher in the
town. Then he told me that the Lost Ford was quite near Villevieille,
and asked me if I knew it. I nodded my head to say that I did. He
went on to say that his father and mother had been there for some
months, and that ther