Nothing more was heard of little Jean Vallin. The parents went to the
lawyer every month to collect their hundred and twenty francs. They had
quarrelled with their neighbors, because Mother Tuvache grossly insulted
them, continually, repeating from door to door that one must be unnatural
to sell one's child; that it was horrible, disgusting, bribery. Sometimes
she would take her Charlot in her arms, ostentatiously exclaiming, as if
he understood:

"I didn't sell you, I didn't! I didn't sell you, my little one! I'm not
rich, but I don't sell my children!"

The Vallins lived comfortably, thanks to the pension. That was the cause
of the unappeasable fury of the Tuvaches, who had remained miserably
poor. Their eldest went away to serve his time in the army; Charlot alone
remained to labor with his old father, to support the mother and two
younger sisters.

He had reached twenty-one years when, one morning, a brilliant carriage
stopped before the two cottages. A young gentleman, with a gold
watch-chain, got out, giving his hand to an aged, white-haired lady. The
old lady said to him: "It is there, my child, at the second house." And
he entered the house of the Vallins as though at home.

The old mother was washing her aprons; the infirm father slumbered at the
chimney-corner. Both raised their heads, and the young man said:

"Good-morning, papa; good-morning, mamma!"

They both stood up, frightened! In a flutter, the peasant woman dropped
her soap into the water, and stammered: