Rosaline’s face was full of sympathy, tears gathered in her eyes, she held out her hand with a gesture of commiseration. “Monsieur, pardon me for speaking of it,” she said, a quiver in her voice; “your sister--oh, believe me, I grieve with you for so terrible an affliction. God knows what my fate may be!” He took her hand in both his and kissed it. “Mademoiselle,” he said gravely, “while I live I will surely defend you from that awful calamity. There is no one to require my service--’tis yours, mademoiselle, and my gratitude and devotion. Would that I had more to devote to your protection!” CHAPTER VIII BABET VISITS THE COBBLER The little hunchback, Charlot, sat patiently at his cobbler’s bench making a pair of shoes. The sun was not shining in his window; it shone on the house across the court, and there was only a reflected glare to brighten the shop at the sign of Two Shoes. His door was open, and from where he sat he could see the two children opposite, playing on the threshold of their home. They were not handsome children, and were clad in patched and faded garments, yet the shoemaker looked over at them often as he plied his needle. He heard the voice of their mother singing as she did her work; he saw the father come home for his dinner, the two little ones greeting him with noisy affection. A humble picture of family life, scarcely worth recording, yet every day le Bossu watched it with interest and a dull pain. His hearth was desolate, but not so desolate as his heart. Charlot cut a strip of fine kid and stitched it, but his eyes dwelt sadly on the house across the court. He went in and out his own door daily, but no one ever greeted him; no loving voice spoke kind words of sympathy when his trouble was upon him; no friendly hand performed the little every-day services for him. There was silence always,--silence and loneliness. The hunchback thought of it and of his life. He could remember no great blessings or joys in it. His parents were humble, and he was the one misshapen child in a large family. From his birth he had been unwelcome in the world. A neglected infant, he fell from the bed to the floor, and from that time began to grow crooked and sickly. His mother’s death robbed him of his only friend, and he struggled through painful years of neglect and suffering to manhood--but what a manhood! he said to himself; not even his own brethren cared for him. The brothers and sisters went out into the world, and Charlot would have been left in miserable poverty but for a kind cobbler who taught him his trade, and thus enabled the cripple to earn his own living.