er exertions to please the good woman who risked the ill
will of her superiors to shower kindnesses upon the otherwise
friendless.

Five years to a girl of twelve brings considerable change physically
as well as otherwise. The change in Fouchette was really wonderful.
She remained still rather stunted and undersized at seventeen, though
face and figure had developed to her advantage. The hardness of the
first had not wholly disappeared, but it was much modified, while the
bones no longer showed through her dress. Her blonde hair had become
abundant, and, being of peculiar fineness and sheen, lent an
attractiveness to features that only a slightly tigerish fulness of
cheeks prevented from being almost classical. This feline expression
of jaws became more marked when she smiled, when a rather large mouth
displayed two rows of formidable teeth. The pussy-cat and monkey-faces
are too common among the French to be called peculiar.

Her hands and feet were small, her frail body and limbs straight and
supple as those of a young dancer. While she excelled at lively games
in the great playground under the trees, her complexion was extremely
delicate, even to paleness. Being naturally a clever imitator and
always desirous of the good opinion of Sister Agnes, Fouchette had
acquired graceful and lady-like manners that would have been
creditable to any fashionable pension of Paris. Continuous happiness
had left her light-hearted even to shallowness.

Fouchette latterly was not popular. She had been first a fag and
drudge, then had been withdrawn from the work-room to serve in the
kitchen; from scullery-maid she had been promoted to the chambers of
Sister Angelique, who was the stern right arm of the Superieure; and,
finally, was transferred to the holy of holies of the Superieure
herself.

All through her tractability and adaptability. She was quick to see
what was wanted, and lent herself energetically to the task of
performance. The good sisters encouraged her. Especially in bringing
to them any stray ideas she had picked up among her companions. Sister
Angelique, severe to fanaticism in all the forms of religion, early
impressed upon the child the importance and imperative duty of the
truth. It was not only a service to the community, but a service to
the Church and to God for her to keep her superiors posted as to what
was going on among the inmates of the institution.

It was a very trivial thing at first, then more trivi