appear to have willingness and courage; but do you know what it will cost you to live in town?—at least three times what it did in the country."
"Well, suppose I have shelter and for rest after toil, I can shift on six cents a day."
"That is the right talk. I like this kind of man," said the plant collector. "Come with me to Paris and I will find you an independent profession by which you may live."
"Oh, my friend," exclaimed Gilbert, intoxicated with delight. "I accept your offer and I am grateful. But what will I have to do in your company?"
"Nothing but toil. But you will mete out the amount of your work. You will exercise your right of youth, freedom, happiness and even of idleness after you earn the right to be at leisure," added the unnamed benefactor, smiling as though in spite of his will.
Then, raising his eyes to heaven, he ejaculated: "Oh, youth, vigor and liberty!" with an inexpressibly poetical melancholy spreading over his fine, pure lineaments.
"Now, lead me to the spot where the maidenhair is to be found," he said.
Gilbert stepped out before the old gentleman and the pair disappeared in the underwood.
Chapter XXVII.
Master Jacques.
Before the day was over the pair could enter the capital. The young man's heart beat as he perceived Notre Dame Cathedral towers and the ocean of housetops.
"Oh, Paris!" he cried with rapture.
"Yes, Paris, a mass of buildings, a gulf of evils," said the old gentleman. "On each stone yonder you would see a drop of blood or a tear, if the miseries within those abodes could show themselves without."
Gilbert repressed his enthusiasm, which cooled of itself.
They entered by a poor district and the sights were hideous.
"It is going on eight," said the conductor, "let us be quick, young man, for goodness' sake."
Gilbert hurried on.
"I forget to say that I am a married man," said the stranger, after a cold silence which began to worry the youth. "And my wife, who is a genuine Parisian, will probably grumble at our coming home late. Besides, she does not like strangers. Still, I have invited you; so, come along. Or, rather, here we are."
By the last sunbeams, Gilbert, looking up, saw the name-plate of Plastrière Street at a corner.
The other paused before an alley door with iron bars to the upper portion. He pulled a leather thong hanging out of a hole, and this opened the door.
"Come quickly," he called to the youth, who hesitated on the threshold, and he closed the alley door after them.
At the end of a few steps up the dark passage, Gilbert stumbled on the lower step of a black, steep flight of stairs. Used to the locality, the old gentleman had gone up a dozen steps. Gilbert rejoined him and stopped only when he did, on a landing worn by feet, on which opened two doors. The stranger pulled a hare's foot hanging at one, and a shrill bell tinkled inside the room.
A woman some fifty years of age appeared, and she and the man spoke together:
"Is it very late, Therese?" asked the latter timidly.
"A nice hour to come to supper, Jacques!" snarled the woman.
"Come, come, we will make up for the delay," said the one called Jacques, shutting the door and taking the collecting case from Gilbert's hands.
"Have we a messenger boy here?" exclaimed the old woman: "We only wanted him to complete the merry company. So you can no longer do so much as carry your heap of weeds and grass? Master Jacques does the grand with a boy to carry his trash—I beg his pardon, he is becoming quite a great nobleman."
"Be a little quiet, Therese."
"Pay the boy and get rid of him; we want no spies here."
Pale as death, Gilbert sprang toward the door, but Jacques stopped him, saying with some firmness:
"This is not a messenger-boy or a spy. He is a guest whom I bring home."
"A guest?" and the hag let her hands drop along her hips. "This is the last straw."
"Light up, Therese," said the host, still kindly, but showing more will; "I am warm, and we are hungry."
The vixen's grumbling diminished in loudness. She drew fire with flint and steel, while Gilbert stood still by the sill which he regretted he had crossed. Jacques perceived what he suffered, and begged him to come forward.
Gilbert saw the hag's yellow and morose face by the first glimmer of the thin candle stuck in a brass candlestick. It inspired him with dislike. On her part the virago was far from liking the pale, fine countenance, circumspect silence and rigidity of the youth.
"I do not wonder at your being heated and hungry," she growled. "It must be tiresome to go browsing in the woods, and it is awful hard work to stoop from time to time to pick up a root. For I suppose this person gathers leaves and buds, too, for herb-collecting is the trade for those who do not any work."
"This is a good and honest young man," said Jacques, in a still firmer voice, "who has honored me with his company all day, and whom my good Therese will greet as a friend, I am sure."
"Enough for two is scant for three," she grumbled.
"We are both frugal."
"I know your kind of frugality. I declare that there is not enough bread in the house for such abstemiousness, and that I am not going down three flights of stairs for more. Anyway, the baker's is shut up."
"Then, I will go," said Jacques, frowning. "Open the door, for I mean it."
"Oh, in that case, I suppose I must do it," said the scold.
"What am I for but to carry out your freaks? Come and have supper."
A table was set in the next room, small and square, with cherry wood chairs, having straw bottoms, and a bureau full of darned hose.
Gilbert took a chair; the old woman placed a plate and the appurtenances, all worn with hard use, before him, with a pewter goblet.
"I thought you were going after bread?" said Jacques.
"Never mind; I found a roll in the cupboard, and you ought to manage on a pound and a half of bread, eh?"
So saying, she put the soup on the board. All three had good appetites, but Gilbert held in his, but he was the first to get through.
"Who has called to-day?" inquired the host, to change the termagant's ideas.
"The whole world, as usual. You promised Lady Boufflers four quires of music, Lady Escars two arias, and Lady Penthievre a quartet with accompaniment. They came or sent. But
