- By taking Virginie to church, Félicité learns the catechism herself.
- On the day of Virginie's first communion, Félicité is so nervous she could have a heart attack; the next day she takes her communion, but it's not nearly as big a deal.
- Virginie is sent to boarding school, which causes a lot of pain for Madame Aubain.
- Félicité also misses Virginie, and hangs out in her room a lot. She asks if her nephew Victor could come visit to cheer her up.
- Victor usually comes on Sundays after mass and his aunt spoils him rotten.
- One day Victor announces that he's signed up to work on an ocean voyage and will be away for two years. This breaks Félicité's heart and she wants to give him a proper goodbye.
- After work one evening she takes off walking to Honfleur, four leagues (almost 14 miles) away, where he will cast off. She gets lost on her way and barely makes it in time to yell his name from the dock. He looks up, and then he's gone.
- On her way home, Félicité stops to pray for Victor, crying. She gets home in the wee hours of the morning, and doesn't stop thinking of her nephew.
- Madame Aubain, meanwhile, worries about Virginie, who is sick again. When Félicité tries to compare the situations, Madame Aubain acts as though Félicité's missing Victor is a drop in the bucket compared to how she feels about Virginie.
- Félicité is angry, but then drops it.
- The pharmacist tells Félicité that he read in the paper that Victor's ship was in Havana, and she imagines him in a cloud of tobacco.
- She asks Monsieur Bourais, Madame Aubain's lawyer and "special friend" whether Victor could come back to France by land from Cuba. He shows her on a map and laughs at her when she asks where Victor's house is on the map.
- Liébard, a farmer, comes with a letter for Félicité a couple weeks later. Madame Aubain reads it for her and tells her that Victor is dead.
- Félicité collapses, and Madame Aubain suggests that she visit her sister. Félicité doesn't go, and feels that no one cares about her. She goes back to work on laundry.
- That night she cries in her room.
- Virginie, too, is growing weaker. Madame Aubain visits her regularly and she begins to feel better.
- One evening, though, they find out that Virginie has pneumonia. Both Madame Aubain and Félicité climb into the carriage to go see her, but then Félicité realizes she isn't sure if she's locked the gate. She jumps down and runs home to check.
- The next day she goes to the convent where Virginie is living and finds that the girl has just died.
- Félicité stays with Virginie for two nights, praying for her.
- Madame Aubain can't recover, and claims to see the ghosts of her dead husband and daughter in the garden. She doesn't leave her room for months.
- Félicité goes to the graveyard daily to visit Virginie's grave.
- The years pass and Madame Aubain's friends stop coming around.
- Paul has turned into a good-for-nothing who spends his life in taverns.
- One day Madame Aubain decides to go through Virginie's things and get rid of them. Félicité asks to keep a moth-eaten, brown, felt hat. The two women cry together, and after that Félicité becomes even kinder.
- She starts serving soldiers cider, taking care of war refugees and cholera patients, and even tending to the tumor on an old, homeless man's arm.
- The day the man, Colmiche, dies, the town sub-prefect's (kind of like a mayor) servant brings a parrot asking for Madame Aubain to take it in, as the sub-prefect has been promoted and is moving away that night.
- Félicité has been fascinated with the parrot for a long time because he's from America, which makes her think of her nephew, who died in the Americas.