" 'What do you think, sir? She has picked up a toad which has had
its leg battered, and carried it to her room, and has put it in
her washstand, and dressed it up like a man. If that is not
profanation, I should like to know what is!'

"On another occasion, when walking along the Falaise, she had
bought a large fish which had just been caught, simply to throw
it back into the sea again. The sailor, from whom she had bought
it, though paid handsomely, was greatly provoked at this
act--more exasperated, indeed, than if she had put her hand into
his pocket and taken his money. For a whole month he could not
speak of the circumstance without getting into a fury and
denouncing it as an outrage. Oh yes! She was indeed a demoniac,
this Miss Harriet, and Mother Lecacheur must have had an
inspiration of genius in thus christening her.

"The stable-boy, who was called Sapeur, because he had served in
Africa in his youth, entertained other aversions. He said, with a
roguish air: 'She is an old hag who has lived her days.' If the
poor woman had but known!

"Little kind-hearted Celeste did not wait upon her willingly, but
I was never able to understand why. Probably her only reason was
that she was a stranger, of another race, of a different tongue,
and of another religion. She was in good truth a demoniac!

"She passed her time wandering about the country, adoring and
searching for God in nature. I found her one evening on her knees
in a cluster of bushes. Having discovered something red through
the leaves, I brushed aside the branches, and Miss Harriet at