him the desert. Like all frail children, Etienne's attitude was
passive, and in that he resembled his mother. The delicacy of his
organs was such that a sudden noise, or the presence of a boisterous
person gave him a sort of fever. He was like those little insects for
whom God seems to temper the violence of the wind and the heat of the
sun; incapable, like them, of struggling against the slightest
obstacle, he yielded, as they do, without resistance or complaint, to
everything that seemed to him aggressive. This angelic patience
inspired in the mother a sentiment which took away all fatigue from
the incessant care required by so frail a being.

Soon his precocious perception of suffering revealed to him the power
that he had upon his mother; often he tried to divert her with
caresses and make her smile at his play; and never did his coaxing
hands, his stammered words, his intelligent laugh fail to rouse her
from her reverie. If he was tired, his care for her kept him from
complaining.

"Poor, dear, little sensitive!" cried the countess as he fell asleep
tired with some play which had driven the sad memories from her mind,
"how can you live in this world? who will understand you? who will
love you? who will see the treasures hidden in that frail body? No
one! Like me, you are alone on earth."

She sighed and wept. The graceful pose of her child lying on her knees
made her smile sadly. She looked at him long, tasting one of those
pleasures which are a secret between mothers and God. Etienne's
weakness was so great that until he was a year and a half old she had
never dared to take him out of doors; but now the faint color which
tinted the whiteness of his skin like the petals of a wild rose,