you.”

“Oh! yes, I love him enough! But when a body’s poor, it’s just as well not to have none at all.”

Auguste looked once more at the old peasant woman, and her extreme ugliness no longer surprised him so much. He took Coco on his knee, gave him milk to drink, and bread and butter to eat, and enjoyed looking at his pretty face and lovely fair hair. The old woman seemed astounded by the endearments which the fine gentleman lavished on the child, and muttered between her teeth:

“Oh! you’ll spoil him! ‘taint no use in doing that!”

“Is he learning to read and write?”

“Oh, of course! where’s the money coming from, I’d like to know? Besides, we don’t want to make a scholar of him. Is that wanted for driving the plough?”

“But you might at least give him a better place to sleep than he has.”

“There ain’t no sheets but for one bed, and it’s no more’n fair for me to have ‘em, old as I am. His father sleeps on a sack of straw same as he does. He don’t sleep no worse for it either, I tell you.”

“Here, Mère Madeleine, take this, and buy a bed for the child, and don’t be so harsh with him.”

As he spoke, Auguste rose, and put six more five-franc pieces in the old woman’s hand. She, having never before seen so much money at one time, made curtsy after curtsy, overwhelming the stranger with thanks, and saying to the child:

“Come, Coco, thank monsieur for giving me all this money for you. Thank him, I say, quick!”

The child looked up at his grandmother in evident embarrassment.

“Let him alone,” said Auguste, as he kissed him; “he doesn’t know the value of money yet. The kiss he gives me is all the more sincere on that account. Adieu, my little Coco.—By the way, which is the road to Livry, please?”

“Follow this path, monsieur, and it’ll take you to the main road. You’ll be there in half an hour. Do you want Coco to show you the way?”

“It isn’t necessary.”

Auguste left the hovel; the child bade him good-bye and called after him:

“Come and play with me again, won’t you?”

“Yes,” said Auguste, “I promise.”