"
"Forty-seven francs, twelve sous!" said Sylvie.
"You are not going to dispute it?" cried the man.
"Where's the bill?" said Rogron.
"Bill! look at the book."
"Stop talking, and pay him," said Sylvie, "You see there's nothing
else to be done."
Rogron went to get the money, and gave the man forty-seven francs,
twelve sous.
"And nothing for my comrade and me?" said the conductor.
Sylvie took two francs from the depths of the old velvet bag which
held her keys.
"Thank you, no," said the man; "keep 'em yourself. We would rather
care for the little one for her own sake." He picked up his book and
departed, saying to the servant-girl: "What a pair! it seems there are
crocodiles out of Egypt!"
"Such men are always brutal," said Sylvie, who overhead the words.
"They took good care of the little girl, anyhow," said Adele with her
hands on her hips.
"We don't have to live with him," remarked Rogron.
"Where's the little one to sleep?" asked Adele.
Such was the arrival of Pierrette Lorrain in the home of her cousins,
who gazed at her with stolid eyes; she was tossed to them like a
package, with no intermediate state between the wretched chamber at
Saint-Jacques and the dining-room of her cousins, which seemed to her
a palace. She was shy and speechless. To all other eyes than those of
the Rogrons the little Breton girl would have seemed enchanting as she
stood there in her petticoat of coarse blue flannel, with a pink
cambric apron, thick shoes, blue stockings, and a white kerchief, her
hands being covered by red worsted mittens edged with white, bought
for her by the conductor.
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