from her head to her feet with such violence that she fell to the
ground unconscious.

Her first thought, when she recovered her senses, was to open the
basket. Loulou was unharmed. She felt a sting on her right cheek;
when she took her hand away it was red, for the blood was flowing.

She sat down on a pile of stones, and sopped her cheek with her
handkerchief; then she ate a crust of bread she had put in her
basket, and consoled herself by looking at the bird.

Arriving at the top of Ecquemanville, she saw the lights of
Honfleur shining in the distance like so many stars; further on,
the ocean spread out in a confused mass. Then a weakness came over
her; the misery of her childhood, the disappointment of her first
love, the departure of her nephew, the death of Virginia; all
these things came back to her at once, and, rising like a swelling
tide in her throat, almost choked her.

Then she wished to speak to the captain of the vessel, and without
stating what she was sending, she gave him some instructions.

Fellacher kept the parrot a long time. He always promised that it
would be ready for the following week; after six months he
announced the shipment of a case, and that was the end of it.
Really, it seemed as if Loulou would never come back to his home.
"They have stolen him," thought Félicité.

Finally he arrived, sitting bolt upright on a branch which could
be screwed into a mahogany pedestal, with his foot in the air, his