"Sit there," she said to Philippe, showing him a three-legged stool
placed at the corner of a carved stone fireplace, where there was no
fire.

On the other side of the chimney-piece was a walnut table with
twisted legs, on which was an egg in a plate and ten or a dozen little
bread-sops, hard and dry and cut with studied parsimony. Two stools
placed beside the table, on one of which the old woman sat down, showed
that the miserly pair were eating their suppers. Cornelius went to the
door and pushed two iron shutters into their place, closing, no doubt,
the loopholes through which they had been gazing into the street; then
he returned to his seat. Philippe Goulenoire (so called) next beheld the
brother and sister dipping their sops into the egg in turn, and with
the utmost gravity and the same precision with which soldiers dip
their spoons in regular rotation into the mess-pot. This performance
was done in silence. But as he ate, Cornelius examined the false
apprentice with as much care and scrutiny as if he were weighing an
old coin.

Philippe, feeling that an icy mantle had descended on his shoulders,
was tempted to look about him; but, with the circumspection dictated
by all amorous enterprises, he was careful not to glance, even
furtively, at the walls; for he fully understood that if Cornelius
detected him, he would not allow so inquisitive a person to remain in
his house. He contented himself, therefore, by looking first at the
egg and then at the old woman, occasionally contemplating his future
master.

Louis XI.'s silversmith resembled that monarch. He had even acquired
the same gestures, as often happens where persons dwell together in a