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The Mysteries of Paris, Volume 2 of 6
With a heavy sigh, the unfortunate man resigned himself to his hard fate. "Thrice happy those parents who can retain their innocent children beneath the paternal roof, and defend them from the thousand snares laid to entrap their unsuspecting youth. But who is there to watch over the safety of the poor girl condemned at an early age to seek employment from home? Alas, no one! Directly she is capable of adding her mite to the family earnings, she leaves her dwelling at an early hour, and repairs to the manufactory where she may happen to be engaged. Meanwhile, both father and mother are too busily employed to have leisure to attend to their daughter's comings or goings. 'Our time is our stock in trade,' cry they, 'and bread is too dear to enable us to lay aside our work while we look after our children.' And then there is an outcry raised as to the quantity of depraved females constantly to be met with, and of the impropriety of conduct among those of the lower orders, wholly forgetting that the parents have neither the means of keeping them at home, nor of watching over their morals when away from them."
Thus mentally moralised Morel. Then, speaking aloud, he added:
"After all, our greatest privation is when forced to quit our parents, wives, or children. It is to the poor that family affection is most comforting and beneficial. Yet, directly our children grow up, and are capable of becoming our dearest companions, we are forced to part with them."
At this moment some one knocked loudly at the door.
CHAPTER XIII
JUDGMENT AND EXECUTION
The lapidary, much astonished, rose and opened the door. Two men entered the garret. One, tall, lanky, with an ill-favoured and pimply face, shaded by thick grizzly whiskers, held in his hand a thick cane, loaded at the head; he wore a battered hat, and a long-tailed and bespattered green coat, buttoned up close to his throat. Above the threadbare velvet collar was displayed his long neck, red and bald like that of a vulture. This man's name was Malicorne. The other was a shorter man, with a look as low-lived, and red, fat, puffed features, dressed with a great effort at ridiculous splendour. Shiny buttons were in the folds of the front of his shirt, whose cleanliness was most suspicious, and a long chain of mosaic gold serpentined down a faded plaid waistcoat, which was seen beneath his seedy Chesterfield, of a yellowish gray colour. This gentleman's name was Bourdin.
"How poverty-stricken this hole smells," said Malicorne, pausing on the threshold.
"Why, it does not scent of lavender-water. Confound it, but we have a lowish customer to deal with," responded Bourdin, with a gesture of disgust and contempt, and then advanced towards the artisan, who was looking at him with as much surprise as indignation.
Through the door, left a little ajar, might be seen the villainous, watchful, and cunning face of the young scamp Tortillard, who, having followed these strangers unknown to them, was sneaking after, spying, and listening to them.
"What do you want?" inquired the lapidary, abruptly, disgusted at the coarseness of these fellows.
"Jérome Morel?" said Bourdin.
"I am he!"
"Working lapidary?"
"Yes."
"You are quite sure?"
"Quite sure. But you are troublesome, so tell me at once your business, or leave the room."
"Really, your politeness is remarkable! Much obliged! I say, Malicorne," said the man, turning to his comrade, "there's not so much fat to cut at here as there was at that 'ere Viscount de Saint-Rémy's."
"I believe you; but when there is fat, why the door's kept shut in your face, as we found in the Rue de Chaillot. The bird had hopped the twig, and precious quick, too, whilst such vermin as these hold on to their cribs like a snail to his shell."
"I believe you; well, the stone jug just suits such individuals."
"The sufferer (creditor) must be a good fellow, for it will cost him more than it's worth; but that's his lookout."
"If," said Morel, angrily, "you were not drunk, as you seem to be, I should be angry with you. Leave this apartment instantly!"
"Ha! ha! He's a fine fellow with his elegant curve," said Bourdin, making an insulting allusion to the contorted figure of the poor lapidary. "I say, Malicorne, he has cheek enough to call this an apartment, – a hole in which I would not put my dog."
"Oh, dear! oh, dear!" exclaimed Madeleine, who had been so frightened that she could not say a word before. "Call for assistance; perhaps they are rogues. Take care of your diamonds!"
And, seeing these two ill-looking strangers come closer to his working-bench, on which his precious stones were still lying, Morel, fearful of some evil intentions, ran towards the table, and covered the jewels with his two hands.
Tortillard, still on the watch, caught at Madeleine's words, observed the movement of the artisan, and said to himself:
"Ha! ha! ha! So they said he was a lapidary of sham stones; if they were mock he would not be afraid of being robbed; this is a good thing to know. So Mother Mathieu, who comes here so often, is a matcher of real stones, after all, and has real diamonds in her basket; this is a good thing to know, and I'll tell the Chouette," added Bras Rouge's brat.
"If you do not leave this room, I will call in the guard," said Morel.
The children, alarmed at this scene, began to cry, and the idiotic mother sat up in her bed.
"If any one has a right to call for the guard, it is we, you Mister Twistabout," said Bourdin.
"And the guard would lend us a hand to carry you off to gaol if you resist," added Malicorne. "We have not the magistrate with us, it is true; but if you have any wish for his company, we'll find you one, just out of bed, hot and heavy; Bourdin will go and fetch him."
"To prison! me?" exclaimed Morel, struck with dismay.
"Yes, to Clichy."
"To Clichy?" repeated the artisan, with an air of despair.
"It seems a hardish pill," said Malicorne.
"Well, then, to the debtors' jail, if you like that better," said Bourdin.
"You – what – indeed – why – the notary – ah, mon Dieu!"
And the workman, pale as death, fell on his stool, unable to add another word.
"We are bound bailiffs, come to lay hold of you; now are you fly?"
"Morel, it is the note of Louise's master! We are undone!" exclaimed Madeleine, in a tone of agony.
"Hear the judgment," said Malicorne, taking from his dirty and crammed pocketbook a stamped writ.
After having skimmed over, according to custom, a part of this document in an unintelligible tone, he distinctly articulated the last words, which were, unfortunately, but too important to the artisan:
"Judgment finally given. The Tribunal condemns Jérome Morel to pay to Pierre Petit-Jean, merchant,6 by every available means, even to the arrest of body, the sum of 1,300 francs, with interest from the day of protest, and to pay all other and extra costs. Given and judged at Paris, 13 September, etc., etc."
"And Louise! Louise!" cried Morel, almost distracted in his brain, and apparently unheeding the long preamble which had just been read. "Where is Louise, then, for, doubtless, she has quitted the notary, since he sends me to prison? My child! My Louise! What has become of you?"
"Who the devil is Louise?" asked Bourdin.
"Let him alone!" replied Malicorne, brutally; "don't you see the respectable old twaddler is not right in his nonsense-box?" Then, approaching Morel, he added: "I say, my fine fellow, right about file! March on! Let us get out of here, will you, and have a little fresh air. You stink enough to poison a cat in this here hole!"
"Morel!" shrieked Madeleine, wildly, "don't go! Kill those wretches! Oh, you coward, not to knock them down! What! are you going to let them take you away? Are you going to abandon us all?"
"Pray don't put yourself out of the way, ma'am," said Bourdin, with an ironical grin. "I've only just got to remark that if your good man lays his little finger on me, why I'll make him remember it," continued he, swinging his loaded stick round and round.
Entirely occupied with thoughts of Louise, Morel scarcely heard a word of what was passing. All at once an expression of bitter satisfaction passed over his countenance, as he said:
"Louise has doubtless left the notary's house; now I shall go to prison willingly." Then, casting a troubled look around him, he exclaimed: "But my wife! Her mother! The children! Who will provide for them? No one will trust me with stones to work at in prison, for it will be supposed my bad conduct has sent me there. Does this hard-hearted notary wish the destruction of myself and all my family also?"
"Once, twice, old chap," said Bourdin, "will you stop your gammon? You are enough to bore a man to death. Come, put on your things, and let us be off."
"Good gentlemen, kind gentlemen," cried Madeleine, from her sick-bed, "pray forgive what I said just now! Surely you will not be so cruel as to take my husband away; what will become of me and my five poor children, and my old mother, who is an idiot? There she lies; you see her, poor old creature, huddled up on her mattress; she is quite out of her senses, my good gentlemen; she is, indeed, quite mad!"
"La! what, that old bald-headed thing a woman? Well, hang me if that ain't enough to astonish a man!"
"I'll be hanged if it isn't, then!" cried the other bailiff, bursting into a horse-laugh; "why, I took it for something tied up in an old sack. Look! her old head is shaved quite close; it seems as though she had got a white skull-cap on."
"Go, children, and kneel down, and beg of these good gentlemen not to take away your poor father, our only support," said Madeleine, anxious by a last effort to touch the hearts of the bailiffs. But, spite of their mother's orders, the terrified children remained weeping on their miserable mattress.
At the unusual noise which prevailed, added to the aspect of two strange men in the room, the poor idiot turned herself towards the wall, as though striving to hide from them, uttering all the time the most discordant cries and moans. Morel, meanwhile, appeared unconscious of all that was going on; this last stroke of fate had been so frightful and unexpected, and the consequences of his arrest were so dreadful, that his mind seemed almost unequal to understanding its reality. Worn out by all manner of privations, and exhausted by over-toil, his strength utterly forsook him, and he remained seated on his stool, pale and haggard, and as though incapable of speech or motion, his head drooping on his breast, and his arms hanging listlessly by his side.
"Deuce take me," cried Malicorne, "if that old patterer is not going fast asleep! Why, I say, my chap, you seem to think nothing of keeping gen'l'men like us waiting; just remember, will you, our time is precious! You know this is not exactly a party of pleasure, so march, or I shall be obliged to make you."
Suiting the action to the word, the man grasped the artisan by the shoulder, and shook him roughly; which so alarmed the children, that, unable to restrain their terror, the three little boys emerged from their paillasse, and, half naked as they were, came in an agony of tears to throw themselves at the feet of the bailiffs, holding up their clasped hands, and crying, in tones of touching earnestness:
"Pray, pray don't hurt our dear father!"
At the sight of these poor, shivering, half-clad infants, weeping with affright, and trembling with cold, Bourdin, spite of his natural callousness and long acquaintance with scenes of this sort, could not avoid a feeling almost resembling compassion from stealing over him, while his pitiless companion, brutally disengaging himself from the grasp of the small, weak creatures who were clinging to him, exclaimed:
"Hands off, you young ragamuffins! A devilish fine trade ours would be, if we were to allow ourselves to be mauled about by a set of beggars' brats like you!"
As though the scene were not sufficiently distressing, a fearful addition was made to its horrors. The eldest of the little girls, who had remained in the paillasse with her sick sister, suddenly exclaimed:
"Mother! mother! I don't know what's the matter with Adèle! She is so cold, and her eyes are fixed on my face, and yet she does not breathe."
The poor little child, whose consumptive appearance we have before noticed, had expired gently, and without a sigh, her looks fixed earnestly on the sister she so tenderly loved.
No language can describe the cry which burst from the lips of the lapidary's wife at these words, which at once revealed the dreadful truth; it was one of those wild, despairing, convulsive shrieks, which seem to sever the very heart-strings of a mother.
"My poor little sister looks as though she were dead!" continued the child; "she frightens me, with her eyes fixed on me, and her face so cold!"
Saying which, in an agony of terror, she leaped from beside the corpse of the infant, and ran to shelter herself in her mother's arms, while the distracted parent, forgetting that her almost paralysed limbs were incapable of supporting her, made a violent effort to rise and go to the assistance of her child, whom she could not believe was actually past recovery; but her strength failed her, and with a deep sigh of despair she sunk upon the floor. That cry found an echo in the heart of Morel, and roused him from his stupor. He sprang with one bound to the paillasse, and withdrew from it the stiffened form of an infant four years old, dead and cold. Want and misery had accelerated its end, although its complaint, which had originated in the positive want of common necessaries, was beyond the reach of any human aid to remove. Its poor little limbs were already rigid with death. Morel, whose very hair seemed to stand on end with despair and terror, stood holding his dead child in his arms, motionlessly contemplating its thin features with a fixed bloodshot gaze, though no tear moistened his dry, burning eyeballs.
"Morel! Morel, give Adèle to me!" cried the unhappy mother, extending her arms towards him; "she is not dead, – it is not possible! Let me have her, and I shall be able to warm her in my arms."
The curiosity of the idiot was excited by observing the pertinacity with which the bailiffs kept close to the lapidary, who would not part with the body of his child. She ceased her yells and cries, and, rising from her mattress, approached gently, protruded her hideous, senseless countenance over Morel's shoulder, staring in vacant wonder at the pale corpse of her grandchild, the features of the idiot retaining their usual expression of stupid sullenness. At the end of a few minutes, she uttered a sort of horrible yawning noise, almost resembling the roar of a famished animal; then, hurrying back to her mattress, she threw herself upon it, exclaiming:
"Hungry! hungry! hungry!"
"Well, gentlemen," said the poor, half-crazed artisan, with haggard looks, "you see all that is left me of my poor child, my Adèle, – we called her Adèle, she was so pretty she deserved a pretty name; and she was just four years old last night. Ay, and this morning even I kissed her, and she put her little arms about my neck and embraced me, – oh, so fondly! And now, you see, gentlemen, perhaps you will tell me there is one mouth less to feed, and that I am lucky to get rid of one, – you think so, don't you?"
The unfortunate man's reason was fast giving way under the many shocks he had received.
"Morel," cried Madeleine, "give me my child! I will have her!"
"To be sure," replied the lapidary; "that is only fair. Everybody ought to secure their own happiness!" So saying, he laid the child in its mother's arms, and uttering a groan, such as comes only from a breaking heart, he covered his face with his hands; while Madeleine, almost as frenzied as her husband, placed the body of her child amid the straw of her wretched bed, watching it with frantic jealousy, while the other children, kneeling around her, filled the air with their wailings.
The bailiffs, who had experienced a temporary feeling of compassion at the death of the child, soon fell back into their accustomed brutality.
"I say, friend," said Malicorne to the lapidary, "your child is dead, and there's an end of it! I dare say you think it a misfortune; but then, you see, we are all mortal, and neither we nor you can bring it back to life. So come along with us; for, to tell you the truth, we're upon the scent of a spicy one we must nab to-day. So don't delay us, that's a trump!"
But Morel heard not a word he said. Entirely preoccupied with his own sad thoughts, the bewildered man kept up a kind of wandering delivery of his own afflicting ideas.
"My poor Adèle!" murmured he; "we must now see about laying you in the grave, and watching by her little corpse till the people come to carry it to its last home, – to lay it in the ground. But how are we to do that without a coffin, – and where shall we get one? Who will give me credit for one? Oh, a very small coffin will do, – only for a little creature of four years of age! And we shall want no bearers! Oh, no, I can carry it under my arm. Ha! ha! ha!" added he, with a burst of frightful mirth; "what a good thing it is she did not live to be as old as Louise! I never could have persuaded anybody to trust me for a coffin large enough for a girl of eighteen years of age."
"I say, just look at that chap!" said Bourdin to Malicorne. "I'll be dashed if I don't think as he's a-going mad, like the old woman there! Only see how he rolls his eyes about, – enough to frighten one! Come, I say, let's make haste and be off. Only hark, how that idiot creature is a-roaring for something to eat! Well, they are rum customers, from beginning to end!"
"We must get done with them as soon as we can. Although the law only allows us seventy-six francs, seventy-five centièmes, for arresting this beggar, yet, in justice to ourselves, we must swell the costs to two hundred and forty or two hundred and fifty francs. You know the sufferer (the creditor) pays us!"
"You mean, advances the cash. Old Gaffer there will have to pay the piper, since he must dance to the music."
"Well, by the time he has paid his creditor 2,500 francs for debt, interest, and expenses, etc., he'll find it pretty warm work."
"A devilish sight more than we do our job up here! I'm a'most frost-bitten!" cried the bailiff, blowing the ends of his fingers. "Come, old fellow, make haste, will you! Just look sharp! You can snivel, you know, as we go along. Why, how the devil can we help it, if your brat has kicked the bucket?"
"These beggars always have such a lot of children, if they have nothing else!"
"Yes, so they have," responded Malicorne. Then, slapping Morel on the shoulder, he called out in a loud voice, "I tell you what it is, my friend, we're not going to be kept dawdling here all day, – our time is precious. So either out with the stumpy, or march off to prison, without any more bother!"
"Prison!" exclaimed a clear, youthful voice; "take M. Morel to prison!" and a bright, beaming face appeared at the door.
"Ah, Mlle. Rigolette," cried the weeping children, as they recognised the happy, healthful countenance of their young protectress and friend, "these wicked men are going to take our poor father away, and put him in prison! And sister Adèle is just dead!"
"Dead!" cried the kind-hearted girl, her dark eyes filling with compassionating tears; "poor little thing! But it cannot be true that your father is in danger of a prison;" and, almost stupefied with surprise, she gazed alternately from the children to Morel, and from him to the bailiffs.
"I say, my girl," said Bourdin, approaching Rigolette, "as you do seem to have the use of your senses, just make this good man hear reason, will you? His child has just died. Well, that can't be helped now; but, you see, he is a-keeping of us, because we're a-waiting to take him to the debtors' prison, being sheriffs' officers, duly sworn in and appointed. Tell him so!"
"Then it is true!" exclaimed the feeling girl.
"True? I should say it was and no mistake! Now, don't you see, while the mother is busy with the dead babby – and, bless you! she's got it there, hugging it up in bed, and won't part with it! – she won't notice us? So I want the father to be off while she isn't thinking nothing about it!"
"Good God! Good God!" replied Rigolette, in deep distress; "what is to be done?"
"Done? Why, pay the money, or go to prison! There is nothing between them two ways. If you happen to have two or three thousand francs by you you can oblige him with, why, shell out, and we'll be off, and glad enough to be gone!"
"How can you," cried Rigolette, "be so barbarous as to make a jest of such distress as this?"
"Well, then," rejoined the other man, "all joking apart, if you really do wish to be useful, try to prevent the woman from seeing us take her husband away. You will spare them both a very disagreeable ten minutes!"
Coarse as was this counsel, it was not destitute of good sense; and Rigolette, feeling she could do nothing else, approached the bedside of Madeleine, who, distracted by her grief, appeared unconscious of the presence of Rigolette, as, gathering the children together, she knelt with them beside their afflicted mother.
Meanwhile Morel, upon recovering from his temporary wildness, had sunk into a state of deep and bitter reflections upon his present position, which, now that his mind saw things through a calmer medium, only increased the poignancy of his sufferings. Since the notary had proceeded to such extremities, any hope from his mercy was vain. He felt there was nothing left but to submit to his fate, and let the law take its course.
"Are we ever to get off?" inquired Bourdin. "I tell you what, my man, if you are not for marching, we must make you, that's all."
"I cannot leave these diamonds about in this manner, – my wife is half distracted," cried Morel, pointing to the stones lying on his work-table. "The person for whom I am polishing them will come to fetch them away either this morning or during the day. They are of considerable value."
"Capital!" whispered Tortillard, who was still peeping in at the half closed door; "capital, capital! What will Mother Chouette say when I tell her this bit of luck?"
"Only give me till to-morrow," said Morel, beseechingly; "only till I can return these diamonds to my employer."
"I tell you, the thing can't be done. So let's have no more to say about it."
"But it is impossible for me to leave diamonds of such value as these exposed, to be lost or even stolen in my absence."
"Well, then, take them along with you. We have got a coach waiting below, for which you will have to pay when you settle the costs. We will go all together to your employer's house, and, if you don't meet with him, why, then, you can deposit these jewels at the office of the prison, where they will be as safe as in the bank; only look sharp, and let's be off before your wife and children perceive us."
"Give me but till to-morrow, – only to bury my child!" implored Morel, in a supplicating voice, half stifled by the heavy sobs he strove in vain to repress.
"Nonsense, I tell you; why, we have lost an hour here already!"
"Besides, it's dull work going to berrins," chimed in Malicorne. "It would be too much for your feelings, p'raps."
"Yes," said Morel, bitterly; "it is dull work to see what we would have given our lives to save laid in the cold earth. But, as you are men, grant me that satisfaction." Then, looking up, and observing the nonchalant air with which his prayer was received, he added, "But no, persons of so much feeling as you are would fear to indulge me, lest I should find it a gloomy sight. Well, then, at least grant me one word!"
"The deuce take your last words! Why, old chap, there seems no end to them. Come, put the steam on; make haste," said Malicorne, with brutal impatience, "or we shall lose t'other gent we're after."
"When did you receive orders to arrest me?"
"Oh, why, judgment was signed four months ago! But it was only yesterday our officer got instructions to put it in execution."
"Only yesterday! And why has it been delayed so long?"
"How the devil should I know? Come, look about you, and put up your things."
"Only yesterday? And during the whole day we saw nothing of Louise! Where can she be? Or what has become of her?" inquired the lapidary mentally, as he took from his table a small box filled with cotton, in which he placed his stones. "But never mind all that now. I shall have plenty of time to think about it when I am in prison."
"Come, look sharp there a bit. Tie up your things to take with you, and put your clothes on, there's a fine fellow!"
"I have no clothes to tie up, and have nothing whatever to take with me except these jewels, that I may deposit them at the office of the prison."
"Well, then, dress yourself as quick as you can."
"I have no other dress than that you now see me in."
"I say, mate," cried Bourdin, "does he really mean to be seen in our company with such rags as those on?"
"I fear, indeed, I shall shame such gentlemen as you are!" said Morel, bitterly.
"It don't much signify," replied Malicorne, "as nobody will see us in the coach."
"Father!" cried one of the children, "mother is calling for you!"
"Listen to me!" said Morel, addressing one of the men with hurried tones; "if one spark of human pity dwells within you, grant me one favour! I have not the courage to bid my wife and children farewell; it would break my heart! And if they see you take me away, they will try to follow me. I wish to spare all this. Therefore, I beseech you to say, in a loud voice, that you will come again in three or four days, and pretend to go away. You can wait for me at the next landing-place, and I will come to you in less than five minutes; that will spare all the misery of taking leave. I am quite sure it would be too much for me, and that I should become mad! I was not far off it a little while ago."
"Not to be caught!" answered Malicorne; "you want to do me! But I'm up to you! You mean to give us the slip, you old chouse!"
"God of heaven!" cried Morel, with a mixture of grief and indignation, "has it come to this?"
"I don't think he means what you say," whispered Bourdin to his companion; "let us do what he asks; we shall never get away unless we do. I'll stand outside the door; there is no other way of escaping from this garret; he cannot get away from us."
"Very well. But what a dog-hole! What a place for a man to care about leaving! Why, a prison will be a palace to it!" Then, addressing Morel, he said, "Now, then, be quick, and we will wait for you on the next landing; so make up some pretence for our going."
"Well," said Bourdin in a loud voice, and bestowing a significant look on the unhappy artisan, "since things are as you say, and as you think you shall be able to pay us in a short time, why, we shall leave you for the present, and return in about four or five days; but you must not disappoint us then, remember!"
"Thank you, gentlemen. I have no doubt I shall be able to pay you then."
The bailiffs then withdrew, while Tortillard, hearing the men talk of quitting the room, had hastened down-stairs for fear of being detected listening.
"There, Madame Morel!" said Rigolette, endeavouring to draw the wife of the lapidary from the state of gloomy abstraction into which she had fallen, "do you hear that? The men have gone, and left your husband undisturbed."
"Mother! mother!" exclaimed the children, joyfully, "they have not taken father away!"
"Morel, Morel!" murmured Madeleine, her brain quite turned, "take one of those diamonds – take the largest – and sell it; no one will know it, and then we shall be delivered from our misery; poor little Adèle will get warm then, and come back to us."
Taking advantage of the instant when no one was observing him, the lapidary profited by it to steal from the room. One of the men was waiting for him on the little landing-place, which was also covered only by the roof; on this small spot opened the door of a garret, which adjoined the apartment occupied by the Morels, and in which M. Pipelet kept his dépôt of leather; and, further, this little angular recess, in which a person could not stand upright, was dignified by the melancholy porter with the name of his Melodramatic Cabinet, because, by means of a hole between the lath and plaster, he frequently indulged in the luxury of woe by witnessing the many touching scenes occasioned by the distress of the wretched family who dwelt in the garret beyond it. This door had not escaped the lynx eye of the bailiff, who had, for a time, suspected his prisoner of intending either to escape or conceal himself by means of it.
"Now, then, let us make a start of it!" cried he, beginning to descend the stairs as Morel emerged from the garret. "Rather a ragged recruit to march with," added he, beckoning to the lapidary to follow him.
"Only an instant, one single instant, for the love of God!" exclaimed Morel, as, kneeling down, he cast a last look on his wife and children through a chink in the door. Then clasping his hands, he said, in a low, heart-broken voice, while bitter tears flowed down his haggard cheeks:
"Adieu, my poor children! my wife! May Heaven preserve you all! Farewell, farewell!"
"Come, don't get preaching!" said Bourdin, coarsely, "or your sermons may keep us here till night, which is what I can't stand, for I am almost froze to death as it is. Ugh! what a kennel! what a hole!"
Morel rose from his knees and was about to follow the bailiff, when the words, "Father! father!" sounded up the staircase.
"Louise!" exclaimed the lapidary, raising his hands towards heaven in a transport of gratitude; "thank God I shall be able to embrace you before I go!"
"Heaven be praised, I am here in time!" cried the voice, as it rapidly approached, and quick, light steps were distinguishable, swiftly ascending the stairs.
"Don't be uneasy, my dear," said a second voice, evidently proceeding from some individual considerably behind the first speaker, but whose thick puffing and laborious breathing announced the coming of one who did not find mounting to the top of the house so easy an affair as it seemed to her light-footed companion.
