she was, and went.

The woman with whom little Madeleine had been placed lived
about fifteen miles from Paris, in a small village perched
half-way up a steep hill, from the foot of which stretched a
wide plain, where the Seine wound slowly amongst trees and
meadows, and scattered villages. The house to which M. Linders
was directed stood a little apart from the others, near the
road-side, but separated from it by a strip of garden, planted
with herbs and a patch of vines; and as he opened the gate, he
came at once upon a pretty little picture of a child of two
years, in a quaint, short-waisted, long-skirted pinafore,
toddling about, playing at hide-and-seek among the tall poles
and trailing tendrils, and kept within safe limits by a pair
of leading-strings passed round the arm of a woman who sat in
the shade of the doorway knitting. As M. Linders came up the
narrow pathway she ran towards him to the utmost extent of her
tether, uttering little joyous inarticulate cries, and
bubbling over with the happy instinctive laughter of a child
whose consciousness is bounded by its glad surroundings.

When, in moments of pseudo remorse, which would come upon him
from time to time, it occurred to M. Linders to reflect upon
his misdeeds, and adopt an apologetic tone concerning them, he
was wont to propound a singular theory respecting his life,
averring, in general terms, that it had been spoilt by women,--
a speech more epigrammatic, perhaps, than accurate, since of
the two women who had loved him best, his mother and his wife,
he had broken the heart of the one, and ruined the happiness
of the other. And yet it was not without its grain of meaning,