petite.

The young girl seated opposite him, watched him in silence, visibly
preoccupied with another thought, at which she smiled from time to time,
while her soft hand caressed the intelligent head of the goat, gently
pressed between her knees.

A candle of yellow wax illuminated this scene of voracity and revery.

Meanwhile, the first cravings of his stomach having been stilled,
Gringoire felt some false shame at perceiving that nothing remained but
one apple.

"You do not eat, Mademoiselle Esmeralda?"

She replied by a negative sign of the head, and her pensive glance fixed
itself upon the vault of the ceiling.

"What the deuce is she thinking of?" thought Gringoire, staring at what
she was gazing at; "'tis impossible that it can be that stone dwarf
carved in the keystone of that arch, which thus absorbs her attention.
What the deuce! I can bear the comparison!"

He raised his voice, "Mademoiselle!"

She seemed not to hear him.

He repeated, still more loudly, "Mademoiselle Esmeralda!"

Trouble wasted. The young girl's mind was elsewhere, and Gringoire's
voice had not the power to recall it. Fortunately, the goat interfered.
She began to pull her mistress gently by the sleeve.

"What dost thou want, Djali?" said the gypsy, hastily, as though
suddenly awakened.

"She is hungry," said Gringoire, charmed to enter into conversation.
Esmeralda began to crumble some bread, which Djali ate gracefully from
the hollow of her hand.

Moreover, Gringoire did not give her time to resume her revery. He
hazarded a delicate question.

"So you don't want me for your husband?"

The young girl looked at him intently, and said, "No."

"For your lover?" went on Gringoire.

She pouted, and replied, "No."

"For your friend?" pursued Gringoire.

She gazed fixedly at him again, and said, after a momentary reflection,
"Perhaps."

This "perhaps," so dear to philosophers, emboldened Gringoire.

"Do you know what friendship is?" he asked.

"Yes," replied the gypsy; "it is to be brother and sister; two souls
which touch without mingling, two fingers on one hand."

"And love?" pursued Gringoire.

"Oh! love!" said she, and her voice trembled, and her eye beamed. "That
is to be two and to be but one. A man and a woman mingled into one
angel. It is heaven."

The street dancer had a beauty as she spoke thus, that struck Gringoire
singularly, and seemed to him in perfect keeping with the almost
oriental exaltation of