Vincent Egg was a very kind-hearted man, and he listened to this recital, and uttered sympathetic ejaculations in the right places. He was sorry about the youngest child, very sorry; he had known a case like it. Perhaps, he suggested, business might pick up. Messrs. Sculry & Co., the great English managers of Tourists’ Excursions, were going to make Drignan a stopping-place for their excursions on the way to Avignon. It was going to be a stopping-place of only a few hours, but, perhaps, it might bring some business. Who knew? Virginie brightened up when she heard this, and said that was so. Those English, she remarked, were always washing--no disrespect intended to the gentleman. “And here,” she said, as they came abreast of a narrow gateway on the other side of the street from Mr. Egg’s lodging-house, “is where I live. It is on the ground floor. Will Monsieur come in and see the baby?” And her eyes lit up for the first time with a real interest--the interest, half-proud, and half-morbid, of a poor, simple creature who longs to exhibit to the world the affliction of monstrosity which sets her poor household apart from others of its kind. Now, Mr. Egg had not the slightest desire to see the baby, and he had no intention whatever of going in; but, glancing through the narrow doorway, he saw a succession of arches in the courtyard beyond, and some old bits of mediæval masonry, which excited his curiosity. If this were the remains of some old monastery that had escaped his notice, it might mean a half-page more--nine-pence--in his guide-book. He strolled in by Virginie’s side, heedless of her chatter. No; it was not the ruin [Illustration] of an ecclesiastical structure. The courtyard was only a part of an old stable and blacksmith-shop; old, but no older probably than the rest of that old street, which might have been standing at the time of Louis XIV--though it probably wasn’t. From its proximity to a canal that marked the line of an old moat, Mr. Egg made a safe guess that it was a small remnant of the stables and farriery attached to the barracks of the original fortifications of the town. At any rate, it was no fish for the net of Messrs. Sculry & Co.’s guide-book compiler; and he was turning to go, when Virginie, who had supposed that he was merely following in her lead, to feast his eyes upon the sick baby, said simply, as she pushed open a door, “This way, Monsieur,” and, before he knew it, he had entered his washerwoman’s room.