"'Come, make haste, Comtois! I don't know what to do with the child! It has been crying until it has burst the drum of my ear, but I can't nurse it. Have you brought a nurse at last?'
"'Yes, monsieur, here's one who will take charge of the little girl.'
"And with that the gentleman, without even looking at me to see how I was built and whether I had much milk, motioned to me to go with him into another room, where I saw a little girl, just come into the world, wriggling on a sofa with cushions; they didn't even have a cradle for her. The gentleman says to me:
"'Take this child and carry it away at once, for it cries enough to split one's head.'
"'It will be twenty francs a month, without counting sugar and soap!'
"'All right, that's understood,' he says; and he puts a hundred francs in my hand, saying: 'This is for the first expenses; don't you be afraid, I'll send you money, you shall have plenty of it.'
"At that I makes another reverence and says:
"'I am a Picarde, monsieur, from the village of Coulange, near Abbeville; my name is Marguerite Thomasseau; my husband raises donkeys, and we've had four nurslings already.'
"'All right, take this little one and go.'
"'But, monsieur,' I says, 'what about the _layette;_ where's the little one's _layette?_'
"At that, the handsome gentleman looks at his swell servant as if he was surprised, and says:
"'What's this woman talking about? What's a _layette?_'
"The servant who was better instructed than his master, says:
"'Monsieur, it is the child's trousseau, the little things that people give to dress it in.'
"'Oh! the devil! I didn't know that myself, and it seems she didn't think of it either! Never mind, Comtois, give her some of my trousers and waistcoats, give her my old dressing-gown and some linen; the nurse can make them over and we'll send her something else later. Make haste, Comtois. Here, put in this handkerchief too, which belongs to the child's mother, and which I put in my pocket by mistake yesterday.'
"The servant made me up a bundle in a hurry; and a queer _layette_ it was, I tell you! I don't believe that any young one ever had one like it; it consisted of a woolen dressing-gown lined with silk, three pairs of broadcloth trousers, six cravats, two white piqué waistcoats and one black satin one, six fine shirts, a pair of suspenders, and a white handkerchief embroidered with a cipher, with a coronet on it. As for the handkerchief, I still have that, I have kept it so that the child might have something that belonged to her parents. However, all that stuff was better than nothing; I took the bundle and they were already turning me out of the room with my nursling, when I remembered that I didn't know anybody's name.