eyes.

"Oh, Madame! it is an immense sum," she replied,

"Let me know the worst," Madame Permon said, with affected distress.
"How much is it?"

"Two dollars!" confessed Eliza in despair.

"Two dollars!" exclaimed Madame Permon; "what extravagant ladies we are
at St. Cyr!" Then she hugged Eliza to her; and, as she did so, she slyly
slipped a five-dollar piece into the girl's hand. "Hush! take it, and
say nothing," she said; for, above all, she did not wish her action to
be seen by Napoleon. For Madame Permon well knew the sensitive pride of
the Bonaparte children.

Soon after they left the school; and when once they were within the
carriage Napoleon's ill-humor burst forth, in spite of himself.

"Was ever anything more humiliating?" he cried; "was ever anything more
unjust? See how it is with that poor child. The rich and poor are
placed together, and the poor must suffer or be pensioners. Is it not
abominable, the way these schools of St. Cyr and the Paris military are
run? Two dollars for a scholars' picnic in a place where no child is
supposed to have money. It is enormous!"

His friends made no reply to this boyish outburst; but, when the
military school was reached, Monsieur Permon followed Napoleon into the
parlor.