h some charcoal--do you want
anything while I'm out?"

"No, no, my child, thank you. But I am very uneasy. It is half-past
eight, and Agricola is not come home." Then she added, after a sigh: "He
kills himself with work for me. Ah, I am very unhappy, my girl; my sight
is quite going. In a quarter of an hour after I begin working, I cannot
see at all--not even to sew sacks. The idea of being a burden to my son
drives me distracted."

"Oh, don't, ma'am, if Agricola heard you say that--"

"I know the poor boy thinks of nothing but me, and that augments my
vexation. Only I think that rather than leave me, he gives up the
advantages that his fellow-workmen enjoy at Hardy's, his good and worthy
master--instead of living in this dull garret, where it is scarcely
light at noon, he would enjoy, like the other workmen, at very little
expense, a good light room, warm in winter, airy in summer, with a view
of the garden. And he is so fond of trees! not to mention that this
place is so far from his work, that it is quite a toil to him to get to
it."

"Oh, when he embraces you he forgets his fatigue, Mrs. Baudoin," said
Mother Bunch; "besides, he knows how you cling to the house in which he
was born. M. Hardy offered to settle you at Plessy with Agricola, in the
building put up for the workmen."

"Yes, my child; but then I must give up church. I can't do that."

"But--be easy, I hear him," said the hunchback, blushing.

A sonorous, joyous voice was heard singing on the stairs.

"At least, I'll not let him see that I have been crying," said the good
mother, drying her tears. "This is the only moment of rest and ease from
toil he has--I must not make it sad to him."

CHAPTER XXIX. AGRICOLA BAUDOIN.

Our blacksmith poet, a tall young man, about four-and-twenty years of
age, was alert and robust, with ruddy complexion, dark hair and eyes,
and aquiline nose, and an open, expressive countenance. His resemblance
to Dagobert was rendered more striking by the thick brown moustache
which he wore according to the fashion; and a sharp-pointed imperial
covered his chin. His cheeks, however, were shaven, Olive color
velveteen trousers, a blue blouse, bronzed by the forge smoke, a black
cravat, tied carelessly round his muscular neck, a cloth cap with
a narrow vizor, composed his dress. The only thing which contrasted
singularly with his working habiliments was a handsome purple flower,
with silvery pistils, which he held in his h