she could torture her, do you know what she did, madame? She drew out some
of her teeth!"

"Oh! would that I could die! this is bitter agony!"

"Listen again. Escaping at length from the hands of La Chouette, wandering
without bread, without shelter, hardly eight years of age, she was arrested
as a vagabond, and put in prison. Oh! these were the happiest days of your
daughter, madame. Yes, in the prison-house, each night she thanked God that
she suffered no more from cold and hunger, and was beaten no more. And it
was in a prison that she spent the most precious years of a young girl's
life, those years which a tender mother always surrounds with so jealous
and pious a solicitude; yes, instead of being protected with maternal care,
your daughter has only known the brutal indifference of jailers; and then
one day, society, in its cruel carelessness, cast her, innocent and pure,
beautiful and ingenuous, into the filth and mire of this great city.
Unhappy child, abandoned, without support, without advice, delivered to all
the chances of misery and vice! Oh!" cried Rudolph, giving free vent to the
sobs which overpowered him; "your heart is hardened, your selfishness
cruel, but you would have wept--yes, _you_ would have wept, on hearing
the touching story of your child. Poor girl! sullied, but not corrupted,
still chaste in the midst of this horrible degradation, which was for her a
frightful dream; for each word told her horror for the life to which she
was so fatally enchained! Oh! if you knew how at each moment were revealed
the most adorable instincts--how much goodness--how much touching charity;
yes, for it was to relieve an unfortunate more wretched than herself, the
poor little thing had spent the little money she had, and which then
separated her from the abyss of infamy into which she was plunged. Yes! for
the day came--a frightful day--when, without work, without bread, without
shelter--horrible women met her, exhausted from weakness--from