drawing a gold louis from her pocket, she held it out to the
pastry-cook. "That is the price agreed upon," she added.

There is a kind of want that is felt instinctively by those who know
want. The man and his wife looked at one another, then at the elderly
woman before them, and read the same thoughts in each other's eyes.
That bit of gold was so plainly the last. Her hands shook a little as
she held it out, looking at it sadly but ungrudgingly, as one who
knows the full extent of the sacrifice. Hunger and penury had carved
lines as easy to read in her face as the traces of asceticism and
fear. There were vestiges of bygone splendor in her clothes. She was
dressed in threadbare silk, a neat but well-worn mantle, and daintily
mended lace,--in the rags of former grandeur, in short. The shopkeeper
and his wife, drawn two ways by pity and self-interest, began by
lulling their consciences with words.

"You seem very poorly, citoyenne----"

"Perhaps madame might like to take something," the wife broke in.

"We have some very nice broth," added the pastry-cook.

"And it is so cold," continued his wife; "perhaps you have caught a
chill, madame, on your way here. But you can rest and warm yourself a
bit."

"We are not so black as the devil!" cried the man.

The kindly intention in the words and tones of the charitable couple
won the old lady's confidence. She said that a strange man had been