appily, too
true to human nature--the two children, whose naturally good
inclinations had so often triumphed over the sea of vice and domestic
corruption by which they were surrounded, even they, forgetting at once
both their fears and their scruples, were alike infected by the same
fatal curiosity.

Huddling close to each other, their eyes glittering with excitement, the
breathing short and quick, Francois and Amandine seemed of all the party
most impatient to ascertain the contents of the case, and the most
irritated and out of patience with the slow progress made by Nicholas in
his attempts to break it open. At length the lid yielded to the powerful
and repeated blows dealt on it by the vigorous arm of the young man, and
as its fragments fell on the ground a loud, exulting cry rose from the
joyful and almost breathless group, who, joining in one wild mass, from
the mother to the little girl, rushed forward, and with savage haste
threw themselves on the opened box, which, forwarded, doubtless, by some
house in Paris to a fashionable draper and mercer residing near the
banks of the river, contained a large assortment of the different
materials employed in female attire.

"Nicholas has not done amiss!" cried Calabash, unfolding a piece of
mousseline-de-laine.

"No, faith!" returned the plunderer, opening, in his turn, a parcel of
silk handkerchiefs; "I shall manage to pay myself for my trouble."

"Levantine, I declare!" cried the widow, dipping into the box, and
drawing forth a rich silk. "Ah, that is a thing that fetches a price as
readily as a loaf of bread."

"Oh, Bras Rouge's receiver, who lives in the Rue du Temple, will buy all
the finery, and be glad of it. And Father Micou, the man who lets
furnished lodgings in the Quartier St. Honore, will take the rest of the
swag."

"Amandine," whispered Francois to his little sister, "what a beautiful
cravat one of those handsome silk handkerchiefs Nicholas is holding in
his hand would make, wouldn't it?"

"Oh, yes; and what a sweet pretty _marmotte_ it would make for me!"
replied the child, in rapture at the very idea.

"Well, it must be confessed, Nicholas," said Calabash, "that it was a
lucky thought of yours to go on board that barge,--famous! Look, here
are shawls, too! How many, I wonder? One, two, three. And just see here,
mother! This one is real Bourre de Soie."

"Mother Burette would give at least five hundred francs for the lot,"
said the widow, after