Page:An account of a savage girl.djvu/32

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4
The History of

ing her hand upon her breast, as if to assure her that she loved her, and would do her no harm; the savage was at last emboldened to come down the tree to receive the roots and fishes that were offered her in so kindly a manner: but the woman enticing her from the tree, by retiring insensibly, gave time to the men who were lying in wait for her, to advance and seize her. She never told me any thing of the grief she felt on being taken, nor of the efforts she made to escape; but we may easily imagine both. She thinks, that, according to the best of her recollection, she was caught two or three days after crossing a river. This river must certainly be the Marne, which runs at about the distance of half a league east from Songi: In which case the little savage must have come from the quarter of Lorrain.

The shepherd and the rest who had caught and brought her to the castle, carried her first into the kitchen, till M. d'Epinoy should be informed of her arrival. The first thing there that appeared to draw her attention, was some fowls which the cook was dressing; at these she flew so greedily, and with such amazing agility, that the astonished cook beheld one of them in her teeth before he imagined she had reached it. M. d'Epinoy arriving in the mean time, and

seeing