"Still, it seems to me that I would rather the person who really owns them had given them to us. What do you say, François?"
"Oh, it's all one to me! They were given to us, and so they're ours."
"Are you sure of that?"
"Why, yes—yes; make yourself easy about that."
"So much the better, then, for we are not doing what Brother Martial forbids, and we have such nice handkerchiefs!"
"But, Amandine, if he had known the other day that Calabash had made you take the plaid handkerchief from the peddler's pack whilst his back was turned?"
"Oh, François, don't talk about it; I have been so very sorry. But I was really forced to do it, for my sister pinched me until the blood came, and looked at me so—oh, in such a way! And yet my heart failed me twice, and I thought I never could do it. The peddler didn't find it out; yet, if they had caught me, François, I should have been sent to prison."
"But you weren't caught; so it's just the same as if you had not stolen."
"Do you think so?"
"Yes."