The next room was fitted up as a kitchen; in the centre was a long table composed of boards placed on trestles, and a dirty-looking woman with her head enveloped in a coarse red handkerchief, and grasping a big wooden spoon, was stirring the contents of a large pot in which some terrible-looking ingredients were cooking.

On a small bed in a corner lay a little boy.

Every now and then a shiver convulsed his frame, his face was deadly pale, and his hands almost transparent, while his great black eyes glittered with the wild delirium of fever.
Sometimes he would give a deep groan, and then the old beldame would turn angrily and threaten to strike him with her wooden spoon.
"But I am so ill," pleaded the boy.
"If you had brought home what you were told, you would not have been beaten, and then you would have had no fever," returned the woman harshly.
"Ah, me! I am sick and cold, and want to go away," wailed the child; "I want to see mammy." Even Tantaine felt uneasy at this scene, and gave a gentle cough to announce his presence.

The old woman turned round on him with an angry snarl.

"Who do you want here ?" growled she.
"Your master." "He has not yet arrived, and may not come at all, for it is not his day; but you can see Poluche." "And who may he be ?" "He is the professor," answered the hag contemptuously.
"And where is he ?" "In the music-room." Tantaine went to the stairs, which were so dingy and dilapidated as to make an ascent a work of danger and difficulty.