stuffed?"

She asked the advice of the chemist, who had always been kind to the
bird.

He wrote to Havre for her. A certain man named Fellacher consented to do
the work. But, as the diligence driver often lost parcels entrusted to
him, Felicite resolved to take her pet to Honfleur herself.

Leafless apple-trees lined the edges of the road. The ditches were
covered with ice. The dogs on the neighbouring farms barked; and
Felicite, with her hands beneath her cape, her little black sabots and
her basket, trotted along nimbly in the middle of the sidewalk. She
crossed the forest, passed by the Haut-Chene, and reached Saint-Gatien.

Behind her, in a cloud of dust and impelled by the steep incline, a
mail-coach drawn by galloping horses advanced like a whirlwind. When he
saw a woman in the middle of the road, who did not get out of the
way, the driver stood up in his seat and shouted to her and so did
the postilion, while the four horses, which he could not hold back,
accelerated their pace; the two leaders were almost upon her; with
a jerk of the reins he threw them to one side, but, furious at the
incident, he lifted his big whip and lashed her 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