various loose articles that had been thrown after the travellers, in
pockets and under cushions. Arthur would have assisted, but only
succeeded in treading on various toes and eliciting some small shrieks,
which disconcerted him all the more, and made Mademoiselle Julienne
look daggers at him, as she relieved her lady of little Ulysse, lifting
him to her own knee, where, as he was absolutely exhausted with crying,
he fell asleep.

Arthur hoped the others would do the same, and perhaps there was more
dozing than they would have confessed; but whenever there was a
movement, and some familiar object in the streets of Paris struck the
eye of Madame, the Abbe, or Estelle, there was a little cry, and they
went off on a fresh score.

'Poor wretched weak creatures!' he said to himself, as he thought the
traditions of Scottish heroic women in whose heroism he had gloated.
And yet he was wrong: Madame de Bourke was capable of as much resolute
self-devotion as any of the ladies on the other side of the Channel,
but tears were a tribute required by the times. So she gave way to
them--just as no doubt the women of former days saw nothing absurd in
bottling them.

Arthur's position among all these weeping figures was extremely
awkward, all the more so that he carried his sword upright between his
legs, not daring to disturb the lachrymose company enough to dispose of
it in the sword case appropriated to weapons. He longed to take out
the little pocket Virgil, which Lord Nithsdale had given him, so as to
have some occupation for his eyes, but he durst not, lest he should be
thought rude, till, at a halt at a cabaret to water the horses, the
striking of a clock reminded the Abbe that it was the time for reading