their purchases in haste. Corporals and nuns clustered round the
mountains of cabbages, and college cooks prowled about inquisitively, on
the look-out for good bargains. The unloading was still going on;
heavy tumbrels, discharging their contents as though these were so many
paving-stones, added more and more waves to the sea of greenery which
was now beating against the opposite footways. And from the far end of
the Rue du Pont Neuf fresh rows of carts were still and ever arriving.

"What a fine sight it is!" exclaimed Claude in an ecstasy of enthusiasm.

Florent was suffering keenly. He fancied that all this was some
supernatural temptation, and, unwilling to look at the markets any
longer, turned towards Saint Eustache, a side view of which he obtained
from the spot where he now stood. With its roses, and broad arched
windows, its bell-turret, and roofs of slate, it looked as though
painted in sepia against the blue of the sky. He fixed his eyes at last
on the sombre depths of the Rue Montorgueil, where fragments of
gaudy sign boards showed conspicuously, and on the corner of the Rue
Montmartre, where there were balconies gleaming with letters of gold.
And when he again glanced at the cross-roads, his gaze was solicited by
other sign boards, on which such inscriptions as "Druggist and Chemist,"
"Flour and Grain" appeared in big red and black capital letters upon
faded backgrounds. Near these corners, houses with narrow windows were
now awakening, setting amidst the newness and airiness of the Rue du
Pont Neuf a few of the yellow ancient facades of olden Paris. Standing
at the empty windows of the great drapery shop at the corner of the
Rue Rambuteau a number of spruce-looking counter-jumpers in their shirt
sleeves, with snowy-white wristbands and tight-fitting pantaloons,
were "dressing" their goods. Farther away, in the windows of the severe
looking, barrack-like Guillot establishment, biscuits in gilt wrappers