Why, I am figged out like a princess, and I never
wear sabots now. And then, I have not known what it is to be hungry
these two months past. And I don't live on potatoes now. He brings me
bonbons and burnt almonds, and chocolate almonds.--Aren't they good?
--I do anything he pleases for a bag of chocolate.--Then my old Daddy
is very kind; he takes such care of me, and is so nice; I know now what
my mother ought to have been.--He is going to get an old woman to help
me, for he doesn't like me to dirty my hands with cooking. For the
past month, too, he has been making a little money, and he gives me
three francs every evening that I put into a money-box. Only he will
never let me out except to come here--and he calls me his little
kitten! Mamma never called me anything but bad names--and thief, and
vermin!"
"Well, then, my child, why should not Daddy Vyder be your husband?"
"But he is, madame," said the girl, looking at Adeline with calm
pride, without a blush, her brow smooth, her eyes steady. "He told me
that I was his little wife; but it is a horrid bore to be a man's wife
--if it were not for the burnt almonds!"
"Good Heaven!" said the Baroness to herself, "what monster can have
had the heart to betray such perfect, such holy innocence? To restore
this child to the ways of virtue would surely atone for many sins.--I
knew what I was doing." thought she, remembering the scene with
Crevel. "But she--she knows nothing."
"Do you know Monsieur Samanon?" asked Atala, with an insinuating look.
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