did not know this miracle of beauty. The child, who was half naked,
wore a forlorn little petticoat of coarse woollen stuff, woven in

alternate strips of brown and white, full of holes and very ragged. A
sheet of rough writing paper, tied on by a shred of osier, served her

for a hat. Beneath this paper--covered with pot-hooks and round O's,
from which it derived the name of "schoolpaper"--the loveliest mass of

blonde hair that ever a daughter of Eve could have desired, was
twisted up, and held in place by a species of comb made to comb out

the tails of horses. Her pretty tanned bosom, and her neck, scarcely
covered by a ragged fichu which was once a Madres handkerchief, showed

edges of the white skin below the exposed and sun-burned parts. One
end of her petticoat was drawn between the legs and fastened with a

huge pin in front, giving that garment the look of a pair of bathing
drawers. The feet and the legs, which could be seen through the clear

water in which she stood, attracted the eye by a delicacy which was
worthy of a sculptor of the middle ages. The charming limbs exposed to

the sun had a ruddy tone that was not without beauty of its own. The
neck and bosom were worthy of being wrapped in silks and cashmeres;

and the nymph had blue eyes fringed with long lashes, whose glance
might have made a painter or a poet fall upon his knees. The doctor,

enough of an anatomist to trace the exquisite figure, recognized the
loss it would be to art if the lines of such a model were destroyed by

the hard toil of the fields.
"Where do you come from, little girl? I have never seen you before,"

said the old doctor, then sixty-two years of age. This scene took
place in the month of September, 1799.

"I belong in Vatan," she answered.
Hearing Rouget's voice, an ill-looking man, standing at some distance

in the deeper waters of the brook, raised his head. "What are you
about, Flore?" he said, "While you are talking instead of catching,

the creatures will get away."
"Why have you come here from Vatan?" continued the doctor, paying no

heed to the interruption.
"I am catching crabs for my uncle Brazier here."

"Rabouiller" is a Berrichon word which admirably describes the thing
it is intended to express; namely, the action of troubling the water

of a brook, making it boil and bubble with a branch whose end-shoots
spread out like a racket. The crabs, frightened by this operation,

which they do not understand, come hastily to the surface, and in
their flurry rush into the net the fisher has laid for them at a

little distance. Flore Brazier held her "rabouilloir" in her hand with
the natural grace of childlike innocence.

"Has your uncle got permission to hunt crabs?"
"Hey! are not we all under a Republic that is one and indivisible?"

cried the uncle from his station.
"We are under a Directory," said the doctor, "and I know of no law

which allows a man to come from Vatan and fish in the territory of
Issoudun"; then he said to Flore, "Have you got a mother, little one!"

"No, monsieur; and my father is in the asylum at Bourges. He went mad
from a sun-stroke he got in the fields."

"How much do you earn?"
"Five sous a day while the season lasts; I catch 'em as far as the

Braisne. In harvest time, I glean; in winter, I spin."
"You are about twelve years old?"

"Yes, monsieur."
"Do you want to come with me? You shall be well fed and well dressed,

and have some pretty shoes."
"No, my niece will stay with me; I am responsible to God and man for

her," said Uncle Brazier who had come up to them. "I am her guardian,
d'ye see?"

The doctor kept his countenance and checked a smile which might have
escaped most people at the aspect of the man. The guardian wore a

peasant's hat, rotted by sun and rain, eaten like the leaves of a
cabbage that has harbored several caterpillars, and mended, here and

there, with white thread. Beneath the hat was a dark and sunken face,
in which the mouth, nose, and eyes, seemed four black spots. His

forlornjacket was a bit of patchwork, and his trousers were of crash
towelling.

"I am Doctor Rouget," said that individual; "and as you are the
guardian of the child, bring her to my house, in the place Saint-Jean.

It will not be a bad day's work for you; nor for her, either."
Without waiting for an answer, and sure that Uncle Brazier would soon

appear with his pretty "rabouilleuse," Doctor Rouget set spurs to his
horse and returned to Issoudun. He had hardly sat down to dinner,

before his cook announced the arrival of the citoyen and citoyenne
Brazier.

"Sit down," said the doctor to the uncle and niece.
Flore and her guardian, still barefooted, looked round the doctor's

dining-room with wondering eyes; never having seen its like before.
The house, which Rouget inherited from the Descoings estate, stands in

the middle of the place Saint-Jean, a so-called square, very long and
very narrow, planted with a few sickly lindens. The houses in this

part of town are better built than elsewhere, and that of the
Descoings's was one of the finest. It stands opposite to the house of

Monsieur Hochon, and has three windows in front on the first storey,
and a porte-cochere on the ground-floor which gives entrance to a

courtyard, beyond which lies the garden. Under the archway of the
porte-cochere is the door of a large hall lighted by two windows on

the street. The kitchen is behind this hall, part of the space being
used for a staircase which leads to the upper floor and to the attic

above that. Beyond the kitchen is a wood-shed and wash-house, a stable
for two horses and a coach-house, over which are some little lofts for

the storage of oats, hay, and straw, where, at that time, the doctor's
servant slept.

The hall which the little peasant and her uncle admired with such
wonder is decorated with wooden carvings of the time of Louis XV.,

painted gray, and a handsome marble chimney-piece, over which Flore
beheld herself in a large mirror without any upper division and with a

carved and gilded frame. On the panelled walls of the room, from space
to space, hung several pictures, the spoil of various religious

houses, such as the abbeys of Deols, Issoudun, Saint-Gildas, La Pree,
Chezal-Beniot, Saint-Sulpice, and the convents of Bourges and

Issoudun, which the liberality of our kings had enriched with the
precious gifts of the glorious works called forth by the Renaissance.

Among the pictures obtained by the Descoings and inherited by Rouget,
was a Holy Family by Albano, a Saint-Jerome of Demenichino, a Head of

Christ by Gian Bellini, a Virgin of Leonardo, a Bearing of the Cross
by Titian, which formerly belonged to the Marquis de Belabre (the one

who sustained a siege and had his head cut off under Louis XIII.); a
Lazarus of Paul Veronese, a Marriage of the Virgin by the priest

Genois, two church paintings by Rubens, and a replica of a picture by
Perugino, done either by Perugino himself or by Raphael; and finally,

two Correggios and one Andrea del Sarto.
The Descoings had culled these treasures from three hundred church

pictures, without knowing their value, and selecting them only for
their good preservation. Many were not only in magnificent frames, but

some were still under glass. Perhaps it was the beauty of the frames
and the value of the glass that led the Descoings to retain the

pictures. The furniture of the room was not wanting in the sort of
luxury we prize in these days, though at that time it had no value in

Issoudun. The clock, standing on the mantle-shelf between two superb
silver candlesticks with six branches, had an ecclesiastical splendor

which revealed the hand of Boulle. The armchairs of carved oak,
covered with tapestry-work due to the devoted industry of women of

high rank, would be treasured in these days, for each was surmounted
with a crown and coat-of-arms. Between the windows stood a rich

console, brought from some castle, on whose marble slab stood an
immense China jar, in which the doctor kept his tobacco. But neither

Rouget, nor his son, nor the cook, took the slightest care of all