companion, unpitying, brutally disengaged his leg from the grasp of
the kneeling supplicants.

"Hands off, you young ragamuffins! A pretty business ours would be
truly, if we had always to do with such beggars!"

A fearful addition was made to the horrors of this scene. The elder of
the little girls, who had remained in the straw with her sick sister,
cried out, "Oh, mother, mother! I do not know what is the matter with
Adele! She is quite cold, and she stares so at me and she don't
breathe!"

The poor consumptive child had just quietly expired, without a murmur,
her looks resting on her sister, whom she tenderly loved.

No language can describe the heart-rending cry of anguish uttered by
the diamond-cutter's wife at this frightful announcement, for she
understood it all. It was one of those stifling, convulsive screams,
torn from the depth of a mother's heart.

"My sister seems as though she were dead!" continued the child. "Oh,
how she frightens me! She still looks at me, but how cold her face
is!" Saying this, the poor child suddenly rose from the side of her
dead sister, and, running terrified, threw herself into the arms of
her mother; while the distracted parent, forgetful that her paralyzed
limbs were incapable of sustaining her, made a violent effort to rise,
and ran toward the corpse; but her strength failed her, and she fell
on the floor, uttering a last cry of despair. That cry found an echo
in Morel's heart, and roused him from his stupor; with one step he
reached the bed's side, snatching from it his child, four years old.