"Here, Father Richard, is a letter from Dreux."
"A letter from Dreux!" exclaimed the old man, seizing it eagerly. "Thank you, my friend." Then, examining the handwriting, he said to himself: "It is from Ramon! What is he going to tell me? What does he think of my son? Ah! what is going to become of all the fine plans Ramon and I formed so long ago?"
"There are six sous to pay on it, Father Richard," said the postman, arousing the old scrivener from his reverie.
"Six sous! the devil! isn't it prepaid?"
"Look at the stamp, Father Richard."
"True," said the scrivener, sighing heavily, as he reluctantly drew the ten sous piece he had just received from his pocket and handed it to the postman.
While this was going on, Mariette was hastening homeward.
CHAPTER II.
A TOUCHING EXAMPLE OF UNSELFISH DEVOTION.
Mariette soon reached the gloomy and sombre thoroughfare known as the Rue des Prêtres St. Germain-l'Auxerrois, and entered one of the houses opposite the grim walls of the church. After traversing a dark alley, the girl began to climb a rickety stairway as dark as the alley itself, for the only light came through a courtyard so narrow that it reminded one of a well.
The porter's room was on the first landing only a few steps from the stairway, and Mariette, pausing there, said to the woman who occupied it: