It was the allusion to
herself that was making Madelon cry with a tender little self-
pity. The child was so weary of the convent, was feeling so
friendless and so homeless just then, that this mention of the
little empty bed that sometime and somewhere had been prepared
and waiting to receive her, awoke in her quite a new longing,
such as she had never had before, for a home and a mother, and
kind protection and care, like other children. When at last
she folded the letter up, it was to put it carefully away in
the little box that contained her few treasures. It belonged
to a life in which she somehow felt she had some part, though
it lay below the horizon of her own memories and
consciousness.
Only then, as Madelon prepared to put back the things that she
had taken out of the trunk, did it occur to her to look if
anything else remained in the pocket of the black silk gown.
There was not much--only a half-used pencil, a small key, and a
faded red silk netted purse. There was money in this last--at
one end a few sous and about six francs in silver, at the
other twenty francs in gold.
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