that was succeeded by a hubbub of sounds, with all the disagreeable pressure of a miscellaneous crowd, sometimes standing on the wheels, or leaning against the carriage-hood. Young Willoughby had torn off his hat with a ‘hurrah!’ which stultified all his previous British protestations. A face was turned up from the confusion beneath, which, owing to the now neater attire of the possessor, Charles had not before observed: the village teacher had assumed coat and hat, bearing an umbrella of somewhat faded texture beneath his arm, and some workmen evidently assisted him to gain a more convenient position. “Yes, I say, Father Pierre,” gloomily observed one of the workmen, addressing the teacher, as if in reference to some previous remark, “there are plots!” “Ah, it is no doubt undeniable,” agreed that person, with reluctance, while he still turned an eye to the carriage, as if to apologise for being thrust up against it: “there are possibly plots. In that case it is only necessary to disconcert them, Monsieur Jacques.” “But it is exactly to do so, Monsieur Morin,” said a quieter mechanic, “that, after earlier than usual dismissing the school, you were on the point to set off for Paris.” “Yes, half an hour ago, on foot, to the Club Breton, at the Palais Royal,” continued a peasant beyond. “Père Pierre had a plot also, you know,” added some one else. “Pardon me, Monsieur Robert—a _plan_,” replied the teacher with his peculiar blandness, though his eye continued wandering sideways to the carriage: “to plot, my friend—it does not belong to the virtuous.” “But from a philosopher,” rejoined the villager, “Monsieur Père Morin is about to become a man of action—he has a plan.” “Delayed by this beast of a barricade, which deranges everything,” said his rougher neighbour, angrily. “Monsieur Morin will, then, however, relate to us this plot which he counteracts,” added the keen-eyed mechanic, with emphasis—“and the plan also. We shall perhaps be able to assist him! It seems to me that M. Morin should have avoided being thrust on this side the barrier.”