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The Story of Marie 79“What delicacy and tenderness were shown by those littlehearts! They couldn’t bear to think that while their dear Leonloved Marie she should be so badly dressed and without shoes.Would you believe it, they managed to get her shoes and stockingsand linen and even a dress of some sort. How they managedto do it I can’t make out. The whole troop worked. When I questionedthem, they only laughed merrily, and the girls clappedtheir hands and kissed me. I too sometimes went to see Mariesecretly. She was by that time very ill and could scarcely walk. Inthe end she gave up working for the herdsman, but still she wentout every morning with the cattle. She used to sit a little apart.There was a ledge jutting out in an overhanging, almost verticalrock there. She used to sit on the stone out of sight, right in thecorner, and she sat there almost without moving all day, fromearly morning till the cattle went home. By then she was so weakfrom consumption that she sat most of the time with her eyesshut and her head leaning against the rock, dozing and breathingpainfully. Her face was as thin as a skeleton’s, and the sweat stoodout on her brow and temples. That was how I always found her. Iused to come for a moment, and I too did not want to be seen. Assoon as I appeared, Marie would start, open her eyes, and fall tokissing my hands. I no longer tried to take them away, for it wasa happiness to her. All the while I sat with her she trembled andwept. She did indeed try sometimes to speak, but it was difficultto understand her. She seemed like a crazed creature in terribleexcitement and delight. Sometimes the children came with me.At such times they generally stood a little way off and kept watchto protect us from anyone or anything, and that was an extraordinarypleasure to them. When we went away, Marie was againleft alone with her eyes shut and her head leaning against therock, dreaming perhaps of something.