smaller and whiter than those of his brothers, there ran a dull red scar
that looked as if he had had a bad cut there. Then they all sat down,
excepting the old mother, who busied herself in waiting on them.

"It's the last good meal you'll get for some time, I'm thinking," she
croaked, as she watched them devouring their supper, "unless you turn to
and find more work than you've done lately. The landlord called for his
rent again to-day and swore he would wait no longer, but turn us out if
we did not pay in three days' time."

"Curse him!" muttered the man who had brought the strangers in, half
under his breath; then aloud he added, "Shut up, good mother: remember,
we have visitors; and one a man of property, who will hardly sympathize
with our poverty."

Babette looked up as he spoke, and intercepted a glance so strange and
savage that passed between the brothers and then rested on her friend
the pedlar, that involuntarily she shuddered and turned pale.

The old man, however, did not appear to notice anything unsatisfactory
in the appearance or manners of his hosts. He had eaten to his liking,
and had allowed the grim-looking eldest brother to fill his glass again
and again with "Genievre" till his face began to flush, and his eyes
grew dazed and heavy. Babette felt more and more uneasy. Oh! to be back
at "Les Trois Frères" again, or even out in the snowy road! Anything
would be better than sitting in this lonely house, with those three
forbidding faces glaring on her. She rose hastily and caught up her
sleeping child. "I am very tired, good people," she said, timidly, "and
I must start betimes in the morning. If I might go to bed now, I should
be so thankful."