Chapter 5 - Page 2

had offered the day before to sell us to the wife of
one of the richest agents de change in Paris, at a napoleon a piece--"the
price is five and twenty francs, if you take the dozen, but as you appear
to wish only ONE, rather than not oblige you, it may be had for eight
and twenty."

{agents de change = stockbrokers; napoleon = gold coin worth twenty
francs}

There was a strange mixture of sorrow and delight in the countenance of
Adrienne; but she did not hesitate, and, attracted by the odor of the eau
de cologne, she instantly pointed me out as the handkerchief she
selected. Our mistress passed her scissors between me and my
neighbor of the cote gauche, and then she seemed instantly to regret her
own precipitation. Before making the final separation from the piece,
she delivered herself of her doubts.

"It is worth another franc, mademoiselle," she said, "to cut a
handkerchief from the CENTRE of the piece."

The pain of Adrienne was now too manifest for concealment. That she
ardently desired the handkerchief was beyond dispute, and yet there
existed some evident obstacle to her wishes.

"I fear I have not so much money with me, madame" she said, pale as
death, for all sense of shame was lost in intense apprehension. Still her
trembling hands did their duty, and her purse was produced. A gold
napoleon promised well, but it had no fellow. Seven more francs
appeared in single pieces. Then two ten-sous were produced; after
which nothing remained but copper. The purse was emptied, and the
reticule rummaged, the whole amounting to just twenty-eight francs
seven sous.

{sou = a small coin (5 centimes)--20 sous equal one franc}

"I have no more, madame," said Adrienne, in a faint voice.

The woman, who had been trained in the school of suspicion, looked
intently at the other, for an instant, and then she swept the money into
her drawer, content with having extorted from this poor girl more than
she would have dared to ask of the wife of the agent de change.
Adrienne took me up and glided from the shop, as if she feared her
dear bought prize would yet be torn from her. I confess my own delight
was so great that I did not fully appreciate, at the time, all the hardship
of the case. It was enough to be liberated, to get into the fresh air, to be
about to fulfill my proper destiny. I was tired of that sort of vegetation in
which I neither grew, nor was watered by tears; nor could I see those
stars on which I so much doated, and from which I had learned a
wisdom so profound. The politics, too, were rendering our family
unpleasant; the cote droit was becoming supercilious--it had always
been illogical; while the cote gauche was just