MADELINE. 131

“You could not bring your mamma?”

“Tam afraid not; she will never go to Auvers, and the
tears come when I speak of her home. I should never have
come but for Madame Virot.”

“Tell your mamma that it is old Gabrielle who bids her
come; tell her to remember that it was she who saved her
from the fire; that it was she who gave her the letters from the
brave American gentleman; that it was she who watched her
grow from a tiny baby to a gracious woman. ‘Tell her the
Madame Dumonteau sits always alone, with dreary eyes, and
that her proud spirit is broken; that one sight of the face
of her lost Madeline will cause the old love to spring forth
as waters from a rock. Ah, my child! bid her come for the
sake of old Gabrielle.”

And Madeline promised to deliver faithfully the message,
when old Gabrielle turned away, and the little girl made haste
to get back to her mother.

That evening, when the sky was touched with rosy clouds,
when the towers of Notre Dame showed darkly against the
evening sky, Madeline, with her head in her mother’s lap
and her hands clasping those of her mother, told her of the
message of old Gabrielle.

“Dear old Gabrielle!” said her saoiler: “dear, loving,
faithful old nurse! And you went there all alone? How did
you manage to do it?”

“TI watched very carefully when I went with Madame