“All this tintamarre presages well for the colony,” decided Nanon as she followed her mistress. “Beaver-skins and trade and money, it means absolutely the same thing, and all good in their way. I like not the way things are going, either. My poor little generous demoiselle! That soft, sleek, splendid cat of an English girl, for all her feigned innocence, still makes eyes at the Sieur du Chesne. Is it only I who have eyes to spy her tricks? For me, I waste not my breath on the melancholy; no patience have I for jeremiads. Tell not your secret in the eyes of the cat, but it is I, Nanon Benest, who will at once sew in the lappet of that gallant’s coat an image of St. Felix to secure him from charms and lead him in the right way. And it was I who dreaded the evil eye from the first.” “_Oui-da! oui-da!_ we are in despair for time, my friends. Shall we then lose the chance of making a sou when it alights at our very door—we who have been breaking our hearts for trade so long,” panted a stout woman, followed by two sturdy lads, as she resolutely pushed her way through the crowd. “Place, there, _ma bibiche_.” Nanon reddened and flouted like an enraged turkey gobbler at this unceremonious address. “Thy _bibiche!_ indeed, that were an honor to be coveted. I know thee, wife of Chauvin the younger, whose son Louis was turned back from his confirmation for running the woods when he should have been ringing the bells. And old Pepin, who is like a sour crab-apple. _Scaramouch!_ knowest thou to whom thou speakest?” The struggling, jesting, good-humored assembly found no lack of diversion. Two men, who had been arrested for theft, were exposed in the pillory, each having on his chest a record of the offence committed. One, a sturdy rogue to whom such correction was likely enough not a novelty, looked boldly around with a certain humorous appreciation of the situation; the other, younger and more sensitive to the shame of his position, sat with bowed head and downcast eyes, while a herald, after beating a drum to call attention to the announcement, proclaimed aloud: “_De par le roi._ Know, then, nobles, citizens, peasants, that by order of His Majesty the King, Candide Bourdon and Xavier Cointet, accused and found guilty of theft, are condemned to two days in the pillory and two hundred livres damages, payable to the religious ladies of the Hotel-Dieu.”