dew
of night.

Fleur-de-Marie, if you will, personifies this benevolent influence.

The reaction to good is not so sudden as the reaction to evil; its
effects are more protracted. It is something delicious, inexplicable,
which gradually extends itself, calms and soothes the most hardened
heart, and gives it the feeling of inexpressible serenity. Unfortunately
the charm ceases.

After having seen celestial brightness, ill-disposed persons fall back
into the darkness of their habitual life; the recollections of sweet
emotions which have for a moment surprised them are gradually effaced.
Still they sometimes seek vaguely to recall them, even as we try to
murmur out the songs with which our happy infancy was cradled. Thanks to
the good action with which she had inspired them, the companions of La
Goualeuse had tasted of the passing sweetness of these feelings, in
which even La Louve had participated; but this latter, for reasons we
shall describe hereafter, remained a shorter time than the other
prisoners under this benevolent feeling. If we are surprised to hear and
see Fleur-de-Marie, hitherto so passively, so painfully resigned, act
and speak with courage and authority, it was because the noble precepts
she had imbibed during her residence at the farm at Bouqueval had
rapidly developed the rare qualities of her admirable disposition.
Fleur-de-Marie understood that it is not sufficient to bewail the
irreparable past, and that it is only in doing or inspiring good that a
reinstatement can be hoped for.

* * * * *

We have said that La Louve was sitting on a wooden bench, beside La
Goualeuse. The close proximity of these two young girls offered a
singular contrast.

The pale rays of a winter sun were shed over them; the pure sky was
speckled in places with small, white, and fleecy clouds; some birds,
enlivened by the warmth of the temperature, were warbling in the black
branches of the large chestnut-trees in the yard; two or three sparrows,
more bold than their fellows, came and drank in a small rivulet formed
by the overflow of the basin; the green moss covered the stones of the
fountain, and between their joints, here and there, were tufts of grass
and some small creepers, spared by the frost. This description of a
prison-basin may seem puerile; but Fleur-de-Marie did not lose one of
the details, but with her eyes fixed mournfully on the little verdant
corner, and on this limpid wat