I
made my way through animals, dogs, and children, to the farm kitchen,
where an old grandmother and a beggar sat on two chairs opposite to
one another, on each side of the fire, and a young woman was busy
over some raw joints of an animal. They stared at me with open
mouths, and when I said that Madame la Comtesse d'Aubepine was come
to see her child, and was waiting in the carriage, they looked as if
such a thing had never been heard of before. The young woman began
to cry--the old woman to grumble. I think if they had dared, they
would have flown into a passion, and I was really alarmed lest the
child might be sick or even dead. I told them impressively who I
was, and demanded that they would instantly show me the little one.
The young woman, muttering something, stepped out and brought in her
arms the very dirtiest child of the whole group I had left in the
gutter, with the whole tribe behind her. My first impulse was to
snatch it up and carry it away to its mother, taking it home at once
to Nid de Merle; but it squalled and kicked so violently when I held
out my arms to it, that it gave me time to think that to carry it
thus away without authority might only bring Cecile into trouble with
those who had the mastery over her, and that to see it in such a
condition could only give her pain. I should not have objected to
the mere surface dirt of grubbing in the farmyard (shocking as it may
sound to you, Mademoiselle mes Petites Filles).
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