"O, yes, yes," murmured Lucy. "I think so." "And--but there, I'm making you worse. Let's talk of something else." But Septimus Hardon's attempts at starting fresh subjects for conversation were one and all failures, and Lucy was silent until they reached Essex-street; though hers were not tears kindred to those she had shed days--weeks--months back, and, as to her dreams that night, they must have been sweet to cause so happy a smile to play upon her lip; for though a tear once stole from the fringed lid, and lay like a pearl upon her cheek, it did not seem like a tear wrung from the heart, neither did the sigh which followed betoken sorrow; for it was a sigh like that sweet expiration some of us have heard when a confession has been wrung from lips we love, and those lips, when pressed, have hardly been withdrawn, but pouted sweetly, looking more ruddy for shame. Only yesterday that they wore that look; it can't be further back than the day before, or, say last week; and--the sweet recollection clings--"There, I do wish to goodness, dear, you would not always make a point of firing off into conversation directly I sit down to read or write. _Now_ what is it? `Young Fitzpater was too attentive to Maude last night?' Pooh! nonsense! sugar-candy! Why, the child isn't seventeen yet, and--" That could not have been last week, after all. How time does fly! Volume Three, Chapter XIV. IN THE RAT'S HOLE. "Hush!" cried _ma mere_, recovering from her tremor; "but I have another piece. You fool, Jean! are you afraid to be in the dark? Here is the candle, but where are the matches?" and the old woman kept on feeling about in her huge pocket, but found them not. "You have the matches, Jean!" she exclaimed at last. "No," said the cripple; "you had them, _ma mere_." "Ah, yes; and I left them in the other place; but I will fetch them. Where are you?" "I am here," whispered Jean, whom the darkness seemed to oppress, so that he could not speak above his breath. "But where?" hissed his mother. "I cannot tell, not yet; where is the stone?" "Don't move," whispered Jean hoarsely; "there is the hole, and you will fall down." "Then, come you," hissed his mother; "we cannot stay here in the dark; and I am not come to go back with empty hand." "What can I do?" cried Jean angrily. "I am afraid to move. Why did you not let me have my crutch?" And now he began to feel slowly along the wall in search of the stone, but his hands only came in contact with the brick bins and empty bottles. "Have you found the opening, Jean?" whispered his mother from the other side of the cellar; and then a cold shudder ran through the cripple as he stood with his hand upon the stone, for there was the sound of someone falling over a piece of board, and _ma mere_ shrieked out, "O, _mon Dieu_, I am lost!" while standing there in the fearful darkness, and knowing his own helplessness, Jean almost swooned with horror.