So it was that he sat stitching mademoiselle’s little shoe and looking across at the children on his neighbor’s step; they had finished their dinner now, and the father had gone back to his work. Le Bossu’s drawn face was pale to-day, and there was pathos in his brown eyes. He waxed his thread and drew it back and forth and once or twice he sighed. There was no sound in his house but the ticking of his clock, but over the way there were the voices of children, the goodwife’s song, the clatter of dishes. Charlot had finished one slipper and put it away, and was taking up the other when some one entered the court. His work would be done in good season, the cobbler thought with satisfaction, and he was cutting the pink ribbon when he looked up and saw Babet, the cook and housekeeper at St. Cyr. Le Bossu tucked the slipper out of sight and greeted his visitor. She entered with a quick, firm step, bearing herself like a grenadier, and dusted the stool with the end of her shawl before she sat down. “Well, Charlot,” she said, opening a bundle that she had brought, “here are my boots, and the left one pinches me and the right is too large. I tell you, man, that you never make two shoes alike.” The cobbler smiled. “Your feet are not alike; that is the trouble, Babet,” he retorted; “the left one is larger than the right.” “Tush!” ejaculated the woman in disgust, “do you take me for a fool? I’ve set my right foot forward all my life, little man, and yet you say the left is larger.” “You have worn the flesh off your right, thrusting it forward, Babet,” replied the cobbler; “’tis the way with some noses--they are ground off, being thrust into other people’s business.” “Humph!” said Babet, “’tis not so with mine. Can you fix the shoe so I can wear it?” The shoemaker knelt down and patiently tried on Babet’s boots, while she found fault first with one and then with the other. It was evident that she was in no very good humor. A different customer was this from mademoiselle, and Charlot’s thoughts were not set on pleasing her. His guest had left him to go to St. Cyr and had ostensibly become steward there; but the hunchback was not deceived. He had long suspected that the women of the château were of the new religion, and now he was secretly convinced of it, and in d’Aguesseau he saw a grave danger for them. Charlot was a sincere Romanist too, and his conscience was troubled, but his heart was full of sympathy for misery; he had himself been miserable all his life. In spite of Babet’s bickering, therefore, he found an opportunity to broach the subject nearest his heart. “Does the new steward suit Madame de St. Cyr?” he asked, as he finally took off the offending boots and put back the old ones on Babet’s large feet. “The new steward indeed!” said she, with a sniff; “a precious steward!--I have no use for fine gentlemen without money! What did you send him to us for?”