e very glad to show it to you some day."

It would be too tedious to follow our travellers step by step on their
long journey, so we will skip over a few days--which passed quietly,
without any incidents worth recording--and rejoin them as they were
drawing near to the ancient town of Poitiers. In the meantime their
receipts had not been large, and hard times had come to the wandering
comedians. The money received from the Marquis de Bruyeres had all
been spent, as well as the modest sum in de Sigognac's purse-who had
contributed all that he possessed to the common fund, in spite of the
protestations of his comrades in distress. The chariot was drawn now
by a single horse-instead of the four with which they had set off
so triumphantly from the Chateau de Bruyeres--and such a horse! a
miserable, old, broken-down hack, whose ribs were so prominent that he
looked as if he lived upon barrel-hoops instead of oats and hay; his
lack-lustre eyes, drooping head, halting gait, and panting breath
combined to make him a most pitiable object, and he plodded on at a
snail's pace, looking as if he might drop down dead on the road at any
moment. Only the three women were in the chariot--the men all walking,
so as to relieve their poor, jaded beast as much as possible. The
weather was bitterly cold, and they wrapped their cloaks about them and
strode on in silence, absorbed in their own melancholy thoughts.

Poor de Sigognac, well-nigh discouraged, asked himself despondingly
whether it would not have been better for him to have remained in the
dilapidated home of his fathers, even at the risk of starving to death
there in silence and seclusion, than run the risk of such hardships in
company with these Bohemians. His thoughts flew back to his good old
Pierre, to Bayard, Miraut, and Beelzebub, the faithful companions of his
solitude; his heart was heavy within him, and at the sudden
remembrance of his dear old friends and followers his throat contracted
spasmodically, and he almost sobbed aloud; but he looked back at
Isabelle, wrapped in her cloak and sitting serenely in the front of the
chariot, and took fresh courage, feeling glad that he could be near her
in this dark hour, to do all that mortal man, struggling against such
odds, could compass for her comfort and protection. She responded to his
appealing glance with a sweet smile, that quickened his pulses and
sent a thrill of joy through every nerve. She did not seem at all
disheart