About this time Caroline received a letter which touched her deeply, and
which we will transcribe without giving the incorrect spelling and
punctuation, that would indeed make it difficult to read.
My dear Caroline,--permit your poor nurse always to address you this
way,--I have just learned from your elder sister, who has done me the
favor of writing me, that you have left her house to become the
companion of a lady in Paris. I cannot describe the pain it gives me to
think that a person like you, born to ease, as I know, should be obliged
to be subject to others, and when I think that it is all of your own
good heart, and to help Camille and her children, the tears come to my
eyes. My dear young lady, I have only one thing to say, and that is,
thanks to the generosity of your parents, that I am not among the most
unfortunate. My husband is pretty well off, and carries on besides a
small business, which has enabled us to buy a house and a bit of land.
My son is a soldier, and your foster-sister has married quite well. So
if you should be in want of a few hundred francs some day or other, we
should be happy to lend them to you, for any length of time and without
interest. By accepting this offer, you will honor and please persons who
have always loved you; for my husband esteems you very much, though he
knows you only through me, and he often says to me, "She ought to come
to us; we could keep her as long as she liked, and as she is strong and
a good walker, we could show her our mountains. If she would, she might,
too, be the school-mistress of our village; this would not bring her in
much, to be sure; but then her expenses would be small, and it would
amount, perhaps, to the same as her salary in Paris, where living is so
dear." I tell you this just exactly as Peyraque says it, and if your own
heart will say the same, we shall have a neat little room all ready for
you, and a somewhat wild country to show you. You will not feel
afraid,--for when you were a very little thing even, you were always
wanting to climb everywhere, so that your poor papa would call you his
little squirrel.
Remember then, if you are not comfortable where you are, dear Caroline
of my heart, that in a little corner of what is to you an unknown
country there are those who know you for the best soul in the wide
world, and who pray for you every night and morning, asking the good God
to bring you here to see us.
JUSTINE LANION,
PEYRAQUE by marriage.
LANTRIAC, near LE PUY, HAUTE LOIRE.