hes and of soot.

Henriette started as if awaking from an evil dream, and, the thought
of her brother flowing in again upon her mind, once more became a
supplicant.

"Can you do nothing for me? won't you assist me to get to Paris?"

With his former air of unconcern Otto again raised his eyes to the
horizon, smiling vaguely.

"What would be the use? since to-morrow morning the city will be a pile
of ruins!"

And that was all; she left the bridge, without even bidding him good-by,
flying, she knew not whither, with her little satchel, while he remained
yet a long time at his post of observation, a motionless figure, rigid
and erect, lost in the darkness of the night, feasting his eyes on the
spectacle of that Babylon in flames.

Almost the first person that Henriette encountered on emerging from
the station was a stout lady who was chaffering with a hackman over
his charge for driving her to the Rue Richelieu in Paris, and the young
woman pleaded so touchingly, with tears in her eyes, that finally the
lady consented to let her occupy a seat in the carriage. The driver, a
little swarthy man, whipped up his horse and did not open his lips once
during the ride, but the stout lady was extremely loquacious, telling
how she had left the city the day but one before after tightly locking
and bolting her shop, but had been so imprudent as to leave some
valuable papers behind, hidden in a hole in the wall; hence her mind had
been occupied by one engrossing thought for the two hours that the city
had been burning, how she might return and snatch her property from the
flames. The sleepy guards at the barrier allowed the carriage to pass
without much difficulty, the worthy lady allaying their scruples with a
fib, telling them she was bringing back her niece with her to Paris to
assist in nursing her husband, who had been wounded by the Versaillese.
It was not until they commenced to make their way along the paved
streets that they encountered serious obstacles; they were obliged at
every moment to turn out in order to avoid the barricades that were
erected across the roadway, and when at last they reached the boulevard
Poissoniere the driver declared he would go no further. The two women
were therefore forced to continue their way on foot, through the Rue du
Sentier, the Rue des Jeuneurs, and all the circumscribing region of the
Bourse. As they approached the fortifications the blazing sky had made
their way as bright before th