The description was exact, and was hailed with loud and long-continued shoutings.
"Laugh away, but let me have it," said Mont Saint-Jean; "and pray do not drag it in the mud as you have some of the other things. I'm sorry you've made your hands so dirty for me, Goualeuse," she added, in a grateful tone.
"Let me have the harlequin's cap," said La Louve, who obtained possession of it, and waved it in the air as a trophy.
"Give it to me, I entreat you," said Goualeuse.
"No! You want to give it back to Mont Saint-Jean."
"Certainly I do."
"Oh, it is not worth while, it is such a rag."
"Mont Saint-Jean has nothing but rags to dress her child in, and you ought to have pity upon her, La Louve," said Fleur-de-Marie, in a mournful voice, and stretching out her hand towards the cap.
"You sha'n't have it!" answered La Louve, in a brutal tone; "must everybody always give way to you because you are the weakest? You come, I see, to abuse the kindness that is shown to you."
"But," said La Goualeuse, with a smile full of sweetness, "where would be the merit of giving up to me, if I were the stronger of the two?"