was obeying orders, and not breaking bounds. By and by, he again accosted me.
"Had I not been ill?" he wished to know: "he understood I had."
"Yes, but I was now quite well."
"Where had I spent the vacation?"
"Chiefly in the Rue Fossette; partly with Madame Bretton."
"He had heard that I was left alone in the Rue Fossette; was that so?"
"Not quite alone: Marie Broc" (the crétin) "was with me."
He shrugged his shoulders; varied and contradictory expressions played rapidly over his countenance. Marie Broc was well known to M. Paul; he never gave a lesson in the third division (containing the least advanced pupils), that she did not occasion in him a sharp conflict between antagonistic impressions. Her personal appearance, her repulsive manners, her often unmanageable disposition, irritated his temper, and inspired him with strong antipathy; a feeling he was too apt to conceive when his taste was offended or his will thwarted. On the other hand, her misfortunes constituted a strong claim on his forbearance and compassion—
