he little girl, just aroused from sleep and brought
from her bed in her night-gown, sat on a chair close to the table, and
behind her stood the earnest, sombre figure of the Grand Cophta. Around
the table stood the prisoners, these duchesses and marquises, these
ladies of the court of Versailles who had preserved their aristocratic
manners in the prison, and were even here so strictly observant of
etiquette, that those of them who had enjoyed the honor of the
_tabouret_ in the Tuileries, were here accorded the same precedence, and
all possible consideration shown them.

On the other side of the table, in breathless suspense, her large, dark
eyes fastened on the child with a touching expression, stood the unhappy
Josephine, and, at some distance behind the ladies, the jailer with
his wife.

Now the Grand Cophta laid both hands on the child's head and cried in a
loud voice, "Open your eyes and look!"

The child turned pale and shuddered as it fixed its gaze on the
decanter.

"What do you see?" asked the Grand Cophta, "I want you to look into the
prison of General Beauharnais. What do you see?"

"I see a little room," said the child with vivacity. "On a cot lies a
young man who sleeps; at his side stands another man, writing on a sheet
of paper that lies on a large book."

"Can you read?"

"No, citizen. Now the man cuts off his hair, and folds it in the paper."

"The one who sleeps?"

"No, the one who was just now writing. He is now writing something on
the back of the paper in which he wrapped the hair; now he opens a
little red pocket-book, and takes papers out of it; they are assignats,
he counts them and then puts them back in the pocket-book. Now he rises
and walks softly, softly."

"What do you mean by softly? You have not heard the slightest noise as
yet, have you?"

"No, but he walks through the room on tiptoe."

"What do you see now?"

"He now covers his face with his hands and seems to be weeping."

"But what did he do with his pocket-book?"

"Ah, he has put the pocket book and the package with the hair in the
pocket of the coat that lies on the sleeping man's bed."

"Of what color is this coat?"

"I cannot see, exactly; it is red or brown, lined with blue silk and
covered with shining buttons."

"That will do," said the Grand Cophta; "you can go to bed, child."

He stooped down over the child and breathed on her forehead. The little
girl seemed to awaken as from a trance, and hurried to