Then she brought in two children, a boy of a dozen years and his sister, who was perhaps ten. Through the holes in their rags could be seen their limbs, reddened with cold. The one was shod in old slippers, the other wore only one wooden shoe. Their foreheads disappeared under their hair, and they stared around them with burning eyeballs like famished wolves.
Madame de Noares told how she had met them that morning on the high-road. Placquevent could not give any information about them.
They were asked their names.
“Victor—Victorine.”
“Where was their father?’
“In jail.”
“And what was he doing before that?”
“Nothing.”
“Their country?”
“St. Pierre.”