To-day he has
more work than he can finish this twelve-month--all this we owe to
you. I shall never forget the day when you promised that you would
grant my brother's wish to be apprenticed to the smith, if I was not
in a passion for a month; that cured me of being so passionate.
"Dear Madame de Fleury, I have written you too long a letter, and not
so well as I can write when I am not in a hurry; but I wanted to tell
you everything at once, because, may be, I shall not for a long time
have so safe an opportunity of sending a letter to you.
"VICTOIRE."
Several months elapsed before Madame do Fleury received another letter
from Victoire; it was short and evidently written in great distress of
mind. It contained an account of her mother's death. She was now left
at the early age of sixteen an orphan. Madame Feuillot, the _brodeuse_,
with whom she lived, added few lines to her letter, penned with
difficulty and strangely spelled, but, expressive of her being highly
pleased with both the girls recommended to her by Madame de Fleury,
especially Victoire, who she said was such a treasure to her, that she
would not part with her on any account, and should consider her as a
daughter. "I tell her not to grieve so much; for though she has lost one
mother she has gained another for herself, who will always love her; and
besides she is so useful, and in so many ways, with her pen and her
needle, in accounts, and everything that is wanted in a family or a shop;
she can never want employment or friends in the worst times, and none can
be worse than these, especially for such pretty girls as she is, who have
all their heads turned, and are taught to consider nothing a sin that
used to be sins.
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