When she came to again, she would stagger about with such a scared, stupefied look, that the gossips of the Faubourg used to say: "She's been drinking, the crazy old thing!" Little Silvere's childish smile was for her the last pale ray which brought some warmth to her frozen limbs.

Weary of solitude, and frightened at the thought of dying alone in one of her fits, she had asked to have the child.

With the little fellow running about near her, she felt secure against death.

Without relinquishing her habits of taciturnity, or seeking to render her automatic movements more supple, she conceived inexpressible affection for him.

Stiff and speechless, she would watch him playing for hours together, listening with delight to the intolerable noise with which he filled the old hovel.