"Come, don't get preaching!" said Bourdin, coarsely, "or your sermons may keep us here till night, which is what I can't stand, for I am almost froze to death as it is. Ugh! what a kennel! what a hole!"
Morel rose from his knees and was about to follow the bailiff, when the words, "Father! father!" sounded up the staircase.
"Louise!" exclaimed the lapidary, raising his hands towards heaven in a transport of gratitude; "thank God I shall be able to embrace you before I go!"
"Heaven be praised, I am here in time!" cried the voice, as it rapidly approached, and quick, light steps were distinguishable, swiftly ascending the stairs.
"Don't be uneasy, my dear," said a second voice, evidently proceeding from some individual considerably behind the first speaker, but whose thick puffing and laborious breathing announced the coming of one who did not find mounting to the top of the house so easy an affair as it seemed to her light-footed companion.
The reader may, perhaps, have already guessed that the last comer was no other than Madame Pipelet, who, less agile than Louise, was compelled to advance at a much slower pace.
"Louise! Is it, indeed, you, my own, my good Louise?" said Morel, still weeping. "But how pale you look! For mercy's sake, my child, what is the matter?"
"Nothing, father, nothing, I assure you!" said Louise, in much agitation; "but I have run so fast! See, I have brought the money!"
"What?"
"You are free!"