can't be so bad to steal, if people are so well
off in prison."

"Oh, the deuce! I don't know. Here it is only Brother Martial who says
it is wrong to steal; perhaps he is wrong."

"Never mind if he is, Francois. We ought to believe him, for he loves us
so much!"

"Yes, he loves us; and, when he is by, there is no fear of our being
beaten. If he had been here this evening, our mother would not have
thrashed me so. An old beast! How savage she is! Oh, how I hate
her--hate her! And how I wish I was grown up, that I might pay her back
the thumps she gives us, especially to you, who can't bear them as well
as I can."

"Oh, Francois, hold your tongue; it quite frightens me to hear you say
that you would beat mother!" cried the poor little child, weeping, and
throwing her arms around her brother's neck, and kissing him
affectionately.

"It's quite true, though," answered Francois, extricating himself gently
from Amandine. "Why are my mother and Calabash always so savage to us?"

"I do not know," replied Amandine, wiping her eyes with the back of her
hand. "It is, perhaps, because they sent Brother Ambroise to the
galleys, and guillotined our father, that they are unjust towards us."

"Is that our fault?"

"Oh, no! But what would you have?"

"_Ma foi!_ If I am always to have beatings,--always, always, at last I
should rather steal, as they do, I should. What do I gain by not being a
thief?"

"Ah, what would Martial say to that?"

"Ah, but for him, I should have said yes a long time ago, for I am tired
of being thumped for ever; why, this evening, my mother was more savage
than ever; she was like a fury! It was pitch dark. She didn't say a
word; and I felt nothing but her clammy hand holding me by the scruff of
my neck, whilst with the other she beat me; and whilst she did so, her
eyes seemed to glare in the dark."

"Poor Francois! for only having said you saw a dead man's bone by the
wood-pile."

"Yes, a foot that was sticking out of the ground," said Francois,
shuddering with fright; "I am quite sure of it."

"Perhaps there was a burying-ground there once."

"Perhaps; but then, why did mother say she'd be the death of me, if I
said a word about the bone to our Brother Martial? I rather think it is
some one who has been killed in a quarrel, and that they have buried him
there, that no one might know anything about it."

"You are right; for don't you remember that such a thing did nearly
happen once?"

"