ul and a friend, she sensed at
once. But could she suddenly have won her sight, Louise would have
been astonished at the actual vision.

Pale narrow spirituelle features, lit by beautiful eyes and surmounted
by a wealth of straight black hair; a form haggard, weazened by
deformity, yet evidencing muscular toil; delicate hands and feet that
like the features bespoke the poesy of soul within mis-shapen
shell,--the hunchback scissors-grinder Pierre Frochard presented a
remarkable aspect which, once seen, no one could ever forget!

Wonder and awe were writ on the pale face as he looked at the lovely
angel he had rescued. Pierre shuddered again over the escape. Better
that he should have suffered myriad deaths than that a hair of that
lovely head were injured. As for himself--poor object of the world's
scorn and his family's revilings--was he worthy e'en to kiss the hem
of her garment?

Pierre looked yet again. The angelic little creature was blind!
Wide-open yet sightless orbs whereof the cataracts blackened the view
of all Life's perils, as they had of the imminent river. A surge of
self-abnegating, celestial love, mingled with divine pity, filled the
hunchback's soul.

Tenderly he inquired about her misfortune, and she told him the sad
tale of the journey and Henriette's kidnapping.... Their talk was
broken in upon by the entry of the hag Mere Frochard and her elder
son.

Alas, poor Louise! In finding a friend thou hast likewise found the
bitter bread of the stranger and the slavery of the Frochard clan! The
wretched hunchback is himself in thrall. Little dreams he the woe that
shall attend ye both, the while Henriette is the victim of far
mightier pomps and powers.

Though Henriette shall not know thy fate for many a day, though she
shall search long and frantically and not meet the beloved until
within the shadow of the guillotine, it may give the reader what
comfort it will that the blind sister still lives--a lost mite in the
vast ocean of Paris!

CHAPTER IV

THE FETE OF BEL-AIR

Henrietta had swooned in the vehicle which was being rapidly driven
into open country.

Gradually color came back into wan cheeks. The blue orbs and Cupid
lips fluttered and half opened; the dazed little brain tried vainly to
sense what had happened.

Quickly the man La Fleur took out a small phial and poured some few
drops of a dark liquid on the girl's tongue. Half consciously
swallowing it, she sank back again--thi