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without danger, you're a Bertelliere; they are all hearty. You are a bit yellow, that's true; but I like yellow, myself." The expectation of ignominious and public death is perhaps less horrible to a condemned criminal than the anticipation of what was coming after breakfast to Madame Grandet and Eugenie. The more gleefully the old man talked and ate, the more their hearts shrank within them. The daughter, however, had an inward prop at this crisis,--she gathered strength through love. "For him! for him!" she cried within her, "I would die a thousand deaths." At this thought, she shot a glance at her mother which flamed with courage. "Clear away," said Grandet to Nanon when, about eleven o'clock, breakfast was over, "but leave the table. We can spread your little treasure upon it," he said, looking at Eugenie. "Little? Faith! no; it isn't little. You possess, in actual value, five thousand nine hundred and fifty-nine francs and the forty I gave you just now. That makes six thousand francs, less one. Well, now see here, little one! I'll give you that one franc to make up the round number. Hey! what are you listening for, Nanon? Mind your own business; go and do your work." Nanon disappeared. "Now listen, Eugenie; you must give me back your gold. You won't refuse your father, my little girl, hein?" The two women were dumb. "I have no gold myself. I had some, but it is all gone. I'll give you in return six thousand francs in _livres_, and you are to put them just where I tell you. You mustn't think anything more about your 'dozen.' When I marry you (which will be soon) I shall get you a husband who can give you the finest 'dozen' ever seen in the provinces. Now attend to me, little girl. There's a fine chance for you; you can put your six thousand francs into government funds, and you will receive every six months nearly two hundred francs interest, without taxes, or repairs, or frost, or hail, or floods, or anything else to swallow up the money. Perhaps you don't like to part with your gold, hey, my girl? Never mind, bring it to me all the same. I'll get you some more like it,--like those Dutch coins and the _portugaises_, the rupees of Mogul, and the _genovines_,--I'll give you some more on your fete-days, and in three years you'll have got back half your little treasure. What's that you say? Look up, now. Come, go and get it, the precious metal. You ought to kiss me on the eyelids for telling you the
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