“Is there nothing the little gentleman would like to say, now, to the unfortunate? Hasn’t he any pleasant remark to make to her about his coming so far to see her when she’s so sunk? It isn’t often that children are shown over the place (as the little man has been), and there’s many that would think they were lucky if they could see what he has seen.” “_Mon pauvre joujou, mon pauvre chéri_,” the prisoner went on, in her tender, tragic whisper. “He only wants to be very good; he always sits that way at home,” said Miss Pynsent, alarmed at Mrs Bowerbank’s address and hoping there wouldn’t be a scene. “He might have stayed at home then—with this wretched person moaning after him,” Mrs Bowerbank remarked, with some sternness. She plainly felt that the occasion threatened to be wanting in brilliancy, and wished to intimate that though she was to be trusted for discipline, she thought they were all getting off too easily. “I came because Pinnie brought me,” Hyacinth declared, from his low perch. “I thought at first it would be pleasant. But it ain’t pleasant—I don’t like prisons.” And he placed his little feet on the cross-piece of the stool, as if to touch the institution at as few points as possible. The woman in bed continued her strange, almost whining plaint. “_Il ne veut pas s’approcher, il a honte de moi_.” “There’s a many that begin like that!” laughed Mrs Bowerbank, who was irritated by the boy’s contempt for one of her Majesty’s finest establishments. Hyacinth’s little white face exhibited no confusion; he only turned it to the prisoner again, and Miss Pynsent felt that some extraordinary dumb exchange of meanings was taking place between them. “She used to be so elegant; she _was_ a fine woman,” she observed, gently and helplessly. “_Il a honte de moi—il a honte, Dieu le pardonne!_” Florentine Vivier went on, never moving her eyes. “She’s asking for something, in her language. I used to know a few words,” said Miss Pynsent, stroking down the bed, very nervously. “Who is that woman? what does she want?” Hyacinth asked, his small, clear voice ringing over the dreary room. “She wants you to come near her, she wants to kiss you, sir,” said Mrs Bowerbank, as if it were more than he deserved. “I won’t kiss her; Pinnie says she stole a watch!” the child answered with resolution. “Oh, you dreadful—how could you ever?” cried Pinnie, blushing all over and starting out of her chair. It was partly Amanda’s agitation, perhaps, which, by the jolt it administered, gave an impulse to the sick woman, and partly the penetrating and expressive tone in which Hyacinth announced his repugnance: at any rate, Florentine, in the most unexpected and violent manner, jerked herself up from her pillow, and, with dilated eyes and waving hands, shrieked out, “_Ah, quelle infamie!_ I never stole a watch, I never stole anything—anything! _Ah, par exemple!_” Then she fell back, sobbing with the passion that had given her a moment’s strength.