Anyhow she counted she might reach Paris well in
fifteen days.
She sat under a shrine in a by street a moment, and counted the copper
pieces she had on her; they were few, and the poor pretty buckles that
she might have sold to get money were stolen.
She had some twenty sous and a dozen eggs; she thought she might live on
that; she had wanted to take the eggs to him, but after all, to keep life
in her until she could reach Paris was the one great thing.
"What a blessing it is to have been born poor; and to have lived
hardly--one wants so little!" she thought to herself.
Then she put up the sous in the linen bosom of her gown, and trimmed her
little lantern and knelt down in the quiet darkness and prayed a moment,
with the hot agonized tears rolling down her face, and then rose and
stepped out bravely in the cool of the night, on the great southwest road
towards Paris.
The thought never once crossed her to turn back, and go again into the
shelter of her own little hut among the flowers. He was sick there,
dying, for anything she knew; that was the only thing she remembered.
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