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By Root 1019 0

if I should see them slip! I do not jest! I fortify them with sermons about honour, about morals, about virtue! Ask them! They must walk straight. They have a father. They are none of those unfortunates, who begin by having no family, and who end by marrying the public. They are Mamselle Nobody, and become Madame Everybody. Thank heaven! none of that in the Fabantou family! I mean to educate them virtuously, and that they may be honest, and that they may be genteel, and that they may believe in God’s sacred name! Well, monsieur, my worthy monsieur, do you know what is going to happen to-morrow? To-morrow is the 4th of February, the fatal day, the last delay that my landlord will give me; if I do not pay him this evening, tomorrow my eldest daughter, myself, my spouse with her fever, my child with her wound, we shall all four be turned out of doors, and driven off into the street, upon the boulevard, without shelter, into the rain, upon the snow. You see, monsieur, I owe four quarters, a year! that is sixty francs.”

Jondrette lied. Four quarters would have made but forty francs, and he could not have owed for four, since it was not six months since Marius had paid for two.

M. Leblanc took five francs from his pocket and threw them on the table.

Jondrette had time to mutter into the ear of his elder daughter:

“The whelp! what does he think I am going to do with his five francs? That will not pay for my chair and my window! I must make my expenses!”

Meantime, M. Leblanc had taken off a large brown overcoat, which he wore over his blue overcoat, and hung it over the back of the chair.

“Monsieur Fabantou,” said he, “I have only these five francs with me; but I am going to take my daughter home, and I will return this evening; is it not this evening that you have to pay?”

Jondrette’s face lighted up with a strange expression. He answered quickly:

“Yes, my noble monsieur. At eight o‘clock, I must be at my landlord’s.”

“I will be here at six o‘clock, and I will bring you the sixty francs.”

“My benefactor!” cried Jondrette, distractedly.

And he added in an undertone:

“Take a good look at him, wife!”

M. Leblanc took the arm of the beautiful young girl, and turned towards the door:

“Till this evening, my friends,” said he.

“Six o‘clock,” said Jondrette.

“Six o‘clock precisely.”

Just then the overcoat on the chair caught the eye of the elder daughter.

“Monsieur,” said she, “you forget your coat.”

Jondrette threw a crushing glance at his daughter, accompanied by a terrible shrug of the shoulders.

M. Leblanc turned and answered with a smile:

“I do not forget it, I leave it.”

“O my patron,” said Jondrette, “my noble benefactor, I am melting into tears! Allow me to conduct you to your carriage.”

“If you go out,” replied M. Leblanc, “put on this overcoat. It is really very cold.”

Jondrette did not make him say it twice. He put on the brown overcoat very quickly.

And they went out all three, Jondrette preceding the two strangers.

9 (10)

PRICE OF CABS: TWO FRANCS AN HOUR

MARIUS had lost nothing of all this scene, and yet in reality he had seen nothing of it. His eyes had remained fixed upon the young girl, his heart had, so to speak, seized upon her and enveloped her entirely, from her first step into the garret. During the whole time she had been there, he had lived that life of ecstasy which suspends material perceptions and precipitates the whole soul upon a single point. He contemplated, not that girl, but that light in a satin pelisse and a velvet hat. Had the star Sirius entered the room he would not have been more dazzled.

While the young girl was opening the bundle, unfolding the clothes and the blankets, questioning the sick mother kindly and the little injured girl tenderly, he watched all her motions, he endeavoured to hear her words. He knew her eyes, her forehead, her beauty, her stature, her gait, he did not know the sound of her voice. He thought he had caught a few words of it once at the Luxembourg Gardens, but he was not absolutely sure. He would have given ten years of his life to hear it,