"Until that time, who had taken care of you?"

"Oh, very good people; but they died of the cholera (here the large
black eyes became tearful); the little they left was sold to discharge
two or three small debts, and I found that no one would shelter me.
Not knowing what to do I went to the guard-house, opposite where I had
resided, and said to the sentinel: 'Soldier, my parents are dead, and
I do not know where to go. What must I do?' The sub-officer came and
took me to the magistrate, who sent me to prison as a vagabond, which
I was allowed to quit at sixteen years of age."

"But your parents?"

"I do not know who was my father; I was six years old when I lost my
mother, who had taken me from the Foundling Hospital, where she had
been compelled at first to place me. The kind people of whom I have
spoken lived in our house; they had no children, and seeing me an
orphan, took care of me."

"And how did they live? What was their condition in life?"

"Papa Cretu, so I always called him, was a house-painter, and the
female who lived with him worked at her needle."

"Then they were tolerably well off?"

"Oh, as well off as most people in their station. Though not married,
they called each other husband and wife. They had their ups and downs;
to-day in abundance, if there was plenty of work; to-morrow