Chickens for me! and what was it supposed I should do with them?
At this point the voice of the Frau Kranich was heard, clear and
malicious: "It is a bargain: bring them in."

At the same time the canvas cover of the wagon puffed outward, giving
issue to a heavy sigh.

The man went to a sort of great cage in lattice-work occupying the
back of the vehicle. Then he backed his wagon up to the sidewalk, and
we saw, sitting on the cage and framed by the oval of the wagon-cover,
a young woman of excellent features, but sadly pale. She now held the
two chickens in her lap, caressing them, laying their heads against
her cheek, and enwreathing them in the folds of her great shawl. I
could only close the bargain with the utmost speed, to be safe from
ridicule.

"Your price?" I asked.

"Fix it yourself, sir," said the man, determined to confuse me. "You
are doubtless thoroughly acquainted with poultry."

"The nankeen--colored one," spoke up again the bell-like and
inexorable voice from the other window, "is a yellow Crevecoeur,
very well formed and lively-looking: the slate-colored one is a
Cochin-China, with only a few of the white feathers lacking from
the head. They are chef-d'oeuvres, and are worth fully forty francs
apiece."

"Only look, sir, at their claws and bills, see their tongues, and
observe under their wings: they are young, wholesome and of fine
strain--"

He was running on when I stopped him: "Here are a hundred francs for
you, brave man."

The patchwork blouse cut a caper, a look of lively joy shot from
the man's eyes, where a tear was gathering, and the wagon, from its
bursting cover, gave utterance to a sob.

"Why sell them," I asked, touched in spite of myself, "if you are so
attached to them? Is the money indispensable to you? I might possibly
make an advance."

"Ah, you are a real Christian--you are now," said the honest Joliet,
polishing his eyeball with his coat-cuff. "The good woman holds by
them, it is true. Holy Virgin! it's she that has raised them, and I
may say brooded over them in the coop. The eggs were for our salad
when we had nothing better than nettles and sorrel. But, day in and
night in, we have no other lodging than our wagon, and the wife is
promising to give me a dolly; and if we don't take out the cage, where
will the cradle go, sir?"

[Illustration: THE PRESENT.]

The calculation appeared reasonable. I received the birds, and they
were the heroes, in their boudoir under t