oung Grandet.

"Ah! you are called Charles? What a beautiful name!" cried Eugenie.

Presentiments of evil are almost always justified. At this moment Nanon,
Madame Grandet, and Eugenie, who had all three been thinking with a
shudder of the old man's return, heard the knock whose echoes they knew
but too well.

"There's papa!" said Eugenie.

She removed the saucer filled with sugar, leaving a few pieces on the
table-cloth; Nanon carried off the egg-cup; Madame Grandet sat up like a
frightened hare. It was evidently a panic, which amazed Charles, who was
wholly unable to understand it.

"Why! what is the matter?" he asked.

"My father has come," answered Eugenie.

"Well, what of that?"

Monsieur Grandet entered the room, threw his keen eye upon the table,
upon Charles, and saw the whole thing.

"Ha! ha! so you have been making a feast for your nephew; very good,
very good, very good indeed!" he said, without stuttering. "When the
cat's away, the mice will play."

"Feast!" thought Charles, incapable of suspecting or imagining the rules
and customs of the household.

"Give me my glass, Nanon," said the master

Eugenie brought the glass. Grandet drew a horn-handled knife with a big
blade from his breeches' pocket, cut a slice of bread, took a small bit
of butter, spread it carefully on the bread, and ate it standing. At
this moment Charlie was sweetening his coffee. Pere Grandet saw the
bits of sugar, looked at his wife, who turned pale, and made three steps
forward; he leaned down to the poor woman's ear and said,--

"Where did you get all that sugar?"

"Nanon fetched it from Fessard's; there was none."

It is impossible to picture the profound interest the three women took
in this mute scene. Nanon had left her kitchen and stood looking into
the room to see what would happen. Charles, having tasted his coffee,
found it bitter and glanced about for the sugar, which Grandet had
already put away.

"What do you want?" said his uncle.

"The sugar."

"Put in more milk," answered the master of the house; "your coffee will
taste sweeter."

Eugenie took the saucer which Grandet had put away and placed it on the
table, looking calmly at her father as she did so. Most assuredly,
the Parisian woman who held a silken ladder with her feeble arms to
facilitate the flight of her lover, showed no greater courage than
Eugenie displayed when she replaced the sugar upon the table. The lover
rewarded his mistress when