"It shall be thought of later," said Uncle Bertrand. "I am too busy now.
Be reasonable, my child, and run away. You detain me."

He left her with a slight impatient shrug of his shoulders and the slight
amused smile on his lips. She heard him speak to his friend.

"She was brought up by one who had renounced the world," he said,
"and she has already renounced it herself--_pauvre petite enfant_! At
eleven years she wishes to devote her fortune to the poor and herself
to the Church."

Elizabeth sank back into the shadow of the _portières_. Great
burning tears filled her eyes and slipped down her cheeks, falling
upon her breast.

"He does not care," she said; "he does not know. And I do no one
good--no one." And she covered her face with her hands and stood sobbing
all alone.

When she returned to her room she was so pale that her maid looked at her
anxiously, and spoke of it afterwards to the other servants. They were
all fond of Mademoiselle Elizabeth. She was always kind and gentle to
everybody.

Nearly all the day she sat, poor little saint! by her window looking out
at the passers-by in the snowy street. But she scarcely saw the people at
all, her thoughts were far away, in the little village where she had
always spent her Christmas before. Her Aunt Clotilde had allowed her at
such times to do so much. There had not been a house she had not carried
some gift to; not a child who had been forgotten. And the church on