"There is another one gone," whispered La Lorraine, thinking of the dead,
and speaking to herself. "She will not suffer more--she is very happy."
"She is very happy, if she has left no children," added Jeanne.
"Oh! you are not asleep, neighbor," said La Lorraine, to her. "How do you
get on, for your first night here? Last night, as soon as you were brought
in, you were placed in bed, and I did not dare to speak to you; I heard you
sob.
"Oh! yes; I have wept much."
"You are, then, in much pain?"
"Yes, but I am used to pain; it is from sorrow I weep. At length I fell
asleep; I was still sleeping when the noise of the doors awoke me. When the
priest came in, and the good sisters knelt, I soon saw it was a woman who
was dying; then I said to myself a pater and an ave for her."
"I also; and, as I have the same complaint, as this woman had, who is just
dead, I could not prevent myself from saying, 'Here is another whose
sufferings are ended; she is very happy!'"
"Yes, as I told you, if she had no children."
"You have children, then?"
"Three," said the sister of Pique-Vinaigre, with a sigh,
"And you?"
"I had a little girl, but I did not keep her long. I am a washer-woman at
the boats; I worked as long as I could. But everything has an end; when my
strength failed me, my bread failed me also. They turned me oat of my
lodgings; I do not know what would have become of me, except for a poor
woman who gave me shelter in a cellar, where she had concealed herself to
escape from her husband, who wished to kill her.
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