But she said nothing.
"What good is it talking to them ?" she thought; "they do not know." Already the neighbors and friends of her infancy seemed so far, far away; creatures of a distant world, that she had long left; it was no use talking, they never would understand.
"Antoine should never have taught you your letters," said Reine, groaning under the great blue shirts she was hanging on high among the leaves.

"I told him so at the time.

I said, 'The child is a good child, and spins, and sews, and sweeps, rare and fine for her age; why go and spoil her ?' But he was always headstrong.

Not a child of mine knows a letter, the saints be praised! nor a word of any tongue but our own good Flemish.

You should have been brought up the same.