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 'Madame la comtesse is a bad old woman. She will bring Madame no good.'

'But none of us are quite bad or quite good, are we, Joseph?' said Jill in an unsteady voice, for Joseph almost frightened her. 'And even if she's very bad indeed, I'm not afraid of her.'

'Yes; some of us are quite bad, and some quite good,' said Joseph. 'Mademoiselle Marthe—has Madame not discovered that she is quite good? Too good—or she would have driven the evil old woman out long ago.'

'Oh—but that would have been so cruel. She couldn't have done that,' Jill murmured, gazing spellbound at Joseph. 'She's been so dreadfully unhappy, hasn't she?'

'' ' Eh, bien! tout le monde a ses misères, ' '' said Joseph with a bitter shrug of the shoulders; 'but some of our calamities are our own fault and some are not. What are the misfortunes of Madame la comtesse to those of Mademoiselle Marthe? Yet she is innocent of all. And we may be sure, Madame, that Madame la comtesse is innocent of nothing.'

'I'm afraid that's true, Joseph. But it makes her more pitiful. That's what Mademoiselle Marthe feels, I know.'

'Yes. That is what she feels. She would give the clothes off her back for any creature for whom she felt pity. It has always been so. See how she dresses; like a peasant, is it not? Yet Mademoiselle Marthe is well-born,' said Joseph, and a passionate resentment, long