Aunt Grédel cried out:
"Oh the robbers! They are taking the lame and the sick. It is all the same to them; next they will take us."
A crowd began collecting, and Sepel the butcher, who was cutting meat in the stall, said:
"Mother Grédel, in the name of Heaven keep quiet. They will put you in prison."
"Well, let them put me there!" she cried, "let them murder me. I say that men are fools to allow such outrages!"
But the sergent-de-ville was coming up, and we went on together weeping. We turned the corner of Café Hemmerle, and went into our own house. People looked at us from the windows and said, "There is another one who is going."
Monsieur Goulden knowing that Aunt Grédel and Catharine would come to dine with us the day of the revision, had had a stuffed goose and two bottles of good Alsace wine sent from the "Golden Sheep." He was sure that I would be exempted at once. What was his surprise, then, to see us enter together in such distress.
"What is the matter?" said he, raising his silk cap over his bald forehead, and staring at us with eyes wide open.
I had not strength enough to answer. I threw myself into the arm-chair and burst into tears. Catharine sat down beside me, and our sobs redoubled.
Aunt Grédel said: