because they make us blush?"

The sewing-girl could hardly believe what she heard. Had her benefactress
felt, like her, the effects of an unfortunate passion, she could not have
held any other language. But the sempstress could not admit such a
supposition; so, attributing to some other cause the sorrows of Adrienne,
she answered mournfully, whilst she thought of her own fatal love for
Agricola, "Oh! yes, lady. A secret grief, of which we are ashamed, must
be frightful--very frightful!"

"But then what happiness to meet, not only a heart noble enough to
inspire complete confidence, but one which has itself been tried by a
thousand sorrows, and is capable of affording you pity, support and
counsel!--Tell me, my dear child," added Mdlle. de Cardoville, as she
looked attentively at Mother Bunch, "if you were weighed down by one of
those sorrows, at which one blushes, would you not be happy, very happy,
to find a kindred soul, to whom you might entrust your griefs, and half
relieve them by entire and merited confidence?"

For the first time in her life, Mother Bunch regarded Mdlle. de
Cardoville with a feeling of suspicion and sadness.

The last words of the young lady seemed to her full of meaning
"Doubtless, she knows my secret," said Mother Bunch to herself;
"doubtless, my journal has fallen into her hands.--She knows my love for
Agricola, or at least suspects it. What she has been saying to me is
intended to provoke my confidence, and to assure herself if she has been
rightly informed."

These thoughts excited in the workgirl's mind no bitter or ungrateful