He had just arrived from Algeria.
"Here is a child," said he with a smile, "and you are her aunt.

The mother is dead and I don't know what to do with her.

I'll give her to you." The mercer took the child, smiled at her and kissed her rosy cheeks.
Although Degans remained a week at Vernon, his sister barely put a question to him concerning the little girl he had brought her.

She understood vaguely that the dear little creature was born at Oran, and that her mother was a woman of the country of great beauty.

The Captain, an hour before his departure, handed his sister a certificate of birth in which Therese, acknowledged by him to be his child, bore his name.