u are told to come in, you young rascal."

He made up his mind, and placed one foot on the lowest step.

There was a great growl under the van. He drew back. The gaping jaws
appeared.

"Peace!" cried the voice of the man.

The jaws retreated, the growling ceased.

"Come up!" continued the man.

The child with difficulty climbed up the three steps. He was impeded by
the infant, so benumbed, rolled up and enveloped in the jacket that
nothing could be distinguished of her, and she was but a little
shapeless mass.

He passed over the three steps; and having reached the threshold,
stopped.

No candle was burning in the caravan, probably from the economy of want.
The hut was lighted only by a red tinge, arising from the opening at the
top of the stove, in which sparkled a peat fire. On the stove were
smoking a porringer and a saucepan, containing to all appearance
something to eat. The savoury odour was perceptible. The hut was
furnished with a chest, a stool, and an unlighted lantern which hung
from the ceiling. Besides, to the partition were attached some boards on
brackets and some hooks, from which hung a variety of things. On the
boards and nails were rows of glasses, coppers, an alembic, a vessel
rather like those used for graining wax, which are called granulators,
and a confusion of strange objects of which the child understood
nothing, and which were utensils for cooking and chemistry. The caravan
was oblong in shape, the stove being in front. It was not even a little
room; it was scarcely a big box. There was more light outside from the
snow than inside from the stove. Everything in the caravan was
indistinct and misty. Nevertheless, a reflection of the fire on the
ceiling enabled the spectator to read in large letters,--

URSUS, PHILOSOPHER.

The child, in fact, was entering the house of Homo and Ursus. The one he
had just heard growling, the other speaking.

The child having reached the threshold, perceived near the stove a man,
tall, smooth, thin and old, dressed in gray, whose head, as he stood,
reached the roof. The man could not have raised himself on tiptoe. The
caravan was just his size.

"Come in!" said the man, who was Ursus.

The child entered.

"Put down your bundle."

The child placed his burden carefully on the top of the chest, for fear
of awakening and terrifying it.

The man continued,--

"How gently you put it down! You could not be more careful were it a
case of relics.