came yesterday will not forget us!"

"Perhaps not. But don't you think Madame Mathieu would lend us four or
five francs, just to keep us from starving? You have worked for her
upwards of ten years; and surely she will not see an honest workman like
you, burthened with a large and sickly family, perish for want of a
little assistance like that?"

"I do not think it is in her power to aid us. She did all in her power
when she advanced me little by little 120 francs. That is a large sum
for her. Because she buys diamonds, and has sometimes 50,000 francs in
her reticule, she is not the more rich for that. If she gains 100
francs a month, she is well content, for she has heavy expenses,--two
nieces to bring up; and five francs is as much to her as it would be to
me. There are times when one does not possess that sum, you know; and
being already so deeply in her debt, I could not ask her to take bread
from her own mouth and that of her family to give it to me."

"This comes of working for mere agents in jewelry, instead of procuring
employment from first-hand master jewellers. They are sometimes less
particular. But you are such a poor, easy creature, you would almost let
any one take the eyes out of your head. It is all your fault that--"

"My fault!" exclaimed the unhappy man, exasperated by this absurd
reproach. "Was it or was it not your mother who occasioned all our
misfortunes, by compelling me to make good the price of the diamond she
lost? But for that we should be beforehand with the world; we should
receive the amount of my daily earnings; we should have the 1,100 francs
in our possession we were obliged to draw out of the savings-bank to put
to the 1,300 francs lent us by M. Jacques Ferrand. May every curse light
on him!"

"And you still persist in not asking him to help you? Certainly he is so
stingy that I daresay he would do nothing for you; but then it is right
to try. You cannot know without you do try."

"Ask him to help me!" cried Morel. "Ask him! I had rather be burnt
before a slow fire. Hark ye, Madeleine! Unless you wish to drive me mad,
mention that man's name no more to me."

As he uttered these words, the usually mild, resigned expression of the
lapidary's countenance was exchanged for a look of gloomy energy, while
a slight suffusion coloured the ordinarily pale features of the agitated
man, as, rising abruptly from the pallet beside which he had been
sitting, he began to pace the miserable ap