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