“I want to buy them; will you tell me how much money they would cost?”
“They are not for sale, mademoiselle.”
“But if I want them?” said the little girl imperiously; “and if I give gold for them, of course they will be for sale. Here, Papa,” she cried out suddenly.
“I want these doves, please; you know you said you would give me my birthday present in advance, and I don’t want the goat-carriage now. I’m sure the little boy will be glad to get two gold pieces; we will give him one for each dove; look how ill and starved he appears! and his clothes, I never saw such tatters. You can send the doves round to the Hotel d’Angleterre, do you hear, boy? and we shall give you two, perhaps three, whole gold pieces.”
She opened her eyes very wide, and nodded her head at him, so busy in her shrill speech that she was quite blind to the expression on the face before her. You have no doubt read the Fairchild Family? Well, when I tell you she was first cousin to Miss Augusta Noble, and very like her too, wearing the same kind of clothes in the same arrogant manner, you will be able to conjure her before the mind’s eye very accurately indeed.
“You will get perhaps three whole gold pieces!” she repeated, “but be sure to be there before to-morrow at noon, for we leave on the day following.
“Papa,” she cried, springing towards her father, “I’m sure to get them, I know I shall: and they can go in my nice, new, great, big aviary.”
In a turmoil of noisy, selfish conversation, she took her excited little person off the scene, bustling through the crowd, and taking her own world with her, in the manner of children who will sometimes burst into a room speaking, never thinking to see if people are talking, or reading aloud within.
And so she went away down the quay, leaving a sense of disturbance behind her. Evidently bound to grow up, poor thing, into one of those people who cause every one to live in a draught around them.
Oliver stood for some time listening. He had no further orders than to remain on the quay in such a manner as that he might readily be seen. He decided he would stay here at all events till sunset, should the French agent by some chance have been delayed. So he stood watching the little hunchback’s quick movements as he caged his doves, packed his tressle-table, and walked away towards the town.