“What did you find out, Jack?” asked Desiré, when he had released René.
“They told me,” he began, turning toward her, “that Simon lives on a street not so very far from here. I thought if you’re ready, we might walk down there; and perhaps he’d be able to tell us where we could spend the night.”
“Aren’t we going to the hotel?” inquired Priscilla, her face clouding.
“No; we haven’t enough money to stay there,” answered Jack, starting ahead with René.
The little girl pouted, and shed a few quiet tears to which Desiré wisely paid no attention. Slowly they strolled along the main street, pausing to look in the window of a stationer’s where the books and English magazines attracted Desiré’s eye; stopping to gaze admiringly at the jewelry, china, pictures, and souvenirs attractively displayed in another shop.
“Just see the lovely purple stones!” cried Priscilla, who had recovered her good humor.
“Those are amethysts,” explained Jack. “They come from Cape Blomidon,” adding to Desiré, “I heard that another vein split open this year.”
“Isn’t it strange that the intense cold nearly every winter brings more of the beautiful jewels to light?” commented the girl.
“A kind of rough treatment which results in profit and beauty,” mused Jack.
“Yes; and, Jack, maybe it will be like that with us. Things are hard now, but perhaps soon we’ll find—”