"What! Nevers!" asked Hubertine. "You were brought up near Nevers?"

Angelique, red with anger that she could not prevent them from reading,
had fallen into a sullen silence. But at last she opened her mouth to
speak of her nurse.

"Ah! you may be sure that Maman Nini would have beaten you. She always
took my part against others, she did, although sometimes she struck me
herself. Ah! it is true I was not so unhappy over there, with the cattle
and all!"

Her voice choked her and she continued, in broken, incoherent sentences,
to speak of the meadow where she drove the great red cow, of the broad
road where she played, of the cakes they cooked, and of a pet house-dog
that had once bitten her.

Hubert interrupted her as he read aloud: "In case of illness, or of bad
treatment, the superintendent is authorised to change the nurses of the
children." Below it was written that the child Angelique Marie had been
given on June 20 to the care of Theresa, wife of Louis Franchomme, both
of them makers of artificial flowers in Paris.

"Ah! I understand," said Hubertine. "You were ill, and so they took you
back to Paris."

But no, that was not the case, and the Huberts did not know the whole
history until they had drawn it, little by little from Angelique. Louis
Franchomme, who was a cousin of Maman Nini, went to pass a month in his
native village when recovering from a fever. It was then that his wife,
Theresa, became very fond of the child, and obtained permission to take