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It was not so. Her heart beat sadly; her thoughts returned without ceasing to the words and lofty looks of Madame d'Harville, when the poor prisoner had spoken with so much enthusiasm of her benefactor. With singular intuition, Goualeuse had thus discovered a part of the lady's secret.

"Good news, my child!" "What do you say, madame?" cried La Goualeuse, rising. "Your friends have not forgotten you; they have obtained your liberty. The director has just received the notice." "Can it be possible, madame! Oh! what happiness!" The emotion of Fleur-de-Marie was so violent, that she turned pale, put her hand to her heart, which beat violently, and fell back on her seat.

Besides, just now, on leaving the prison, the inspectress told me that the protectors of La Goualeuse, people of high rank, had taken her from the prison this very day: that proves that she has benefactors, and that she can do what she has promised." "Oh!" cried Martial, suddenly, rising from his seat, "I do not know what we are thinking about." "What is it?"

Then, taking from her neck her shawl, she folded it carefully, knelt down, laid it on the slightly damp gravel of the walk, and said to La Goualeuse: "Place yourself there." "But, La Louve," said Fleur-de-Marie, who had perceived the design of her companion too late to prevent its execution, "but, La Louve, you will ruin your shawl."

And Mrs. Seraphin, after having exchanged salutations with the warders, descended with La Goualeuse, followed by an officer to open the doors. The last one was closed on the two females, and they found themselves under the large porch which faces the Rue du Faubourg Saint Denis, when they met a girl who was coming, doubtless, to visit a prisoner. It was Rigolette, ever neat and coquettish.

"With the relations your ladyship has, it will be very easy for you to get her discharge to-day or to-morrow; it depends entirely on the prefect of the police. The recommendation of a person of quality would be decisive with him. But I have wandered far, madame, from the observation that I made on the slumber of the Goualeuse.

It is midnight; you will find him there; bring him with you; he will take La Goualeuse to the post, and declare she is a gay girl, whom he found near his tavern.

An incident, half burlesque, diverted the attention of La Goualeuse, and prevented her from remarking more closely the emotion of her father: the worthy squire, who still remained behind the curtain, and, apparently was very attentively looking into the garden of the hotel, could not refrain from blowing his nose with a most formidable noise, for he wept like a child.

The vivifying warmth of the sun and the action of walking colored with a rosy tint the pale, thin cheeks of Goualeuse; her peasant's costume having been torn in the agitation attending the first assistance that had been rendered her, she wore a dress of dark-blue merino, made loose, and only confined around her delicate and slender waist by a woolen girdle.

"Part from it never, oh, never!" cried Mont Saint Jean, with warmth. "What would become of me then, now that I have counted on him?" "But how will you support it? son or daughter, it must be honest, and for that " "It must eat honest bread, is it not so, La Goualeuse? I think so; it is my ambition. I say it to myself every day, thus: on leaving here I shall not let the grass grow under my feet.