But at last she opened her mouth to speak of her nurse.
"Ah! you may be sure that Maman Nini would have beaten you.

She always took my part against others, she did, although sometimes she struck me herself.

Ah! it is true I was not so unhappy over there, with the cattle and all!" Her voice choked her and she continued, in broken, incoherent sentences, to speak of the meadow where she drove the great red cow, of the broad road where she played, of the cakes they cooked, and of a pet house-dog that had once bitten her.
Hubert interrupted her as he read aloud: "In case of illness, or of bad treatment, the superintendent is authorised to change the nurses of the children." Below it was written that the child Angelique Marie had been given on June 20 to the care of Theresa, wife of Louis Franchomme, both of them makers of artificial flowers in Paris.
"Ah! I understand," said Hubertine.

"You were ill, and so they took you back to Paris." But no, that was not the case, and the Huberts did not know the whole history until they had drawn it, little by little from Angelique.

Louis Franchomme, who was a cousin of Maman Nini, went to pass a month in his native village when recovering from a fever.