"You have a bewitching little fellow there, citizeness," remarked Maillard; "he appears sharp-witted, but you will have to take care lest he become a thief."
"How dare you, sir!—a thief?" cried the woman called Oliva. "Why do you say such a thing, I should like to know?"
"Only because he has not lost the two cents, but hid them in his shoe."
"Me?" retorted the boy. "What a lie!"
"In the left shoe, citizeness—in the left," said Maillard.
In spite of the yell of young Toussaint, Mme. Oliva took off his left shoe and found the coppers in it. She handed them to the apothecary's clerk, and dragged away the urchin with threats of punishment which would have appeared terrible to the by-standers, if they had not been accompanied by soft words which no doubt sprung from maternal affection. Unimportant as the incident was in itself, it certainly would have passed without comment amid the surrounding grave circumstances, if the resemblance of the heroine to the queen had not impressed the witness. The result of his pondering over this was that he went up to his friend in drugs, and said to him, in a respite from trade:
"Did you not notice the likeness of that woman who just went out to—"
"The queen?" said the other, laughing.
"Yes; so you remarked it the same as I?"
"Oh, ever so long ago. It is a matter of history."