But the money was all safe next evening, when his cousin, Monsieur Morin Fils, came to collect it.

Madame Babette asked her nephew to sit down, and skilfully barred the passage to the inner door, so that Virginie, had she been ever so much disposed, could not have retreated.

She sat silently sewing.

All at once the little party were startled by a very sweet tenor voice, just close to the street window, singing one of the airs out of Beaumarchais' operas, which, a few years before, had been popular all over Paris.

But after a few moments of silence, and one or two remarks, the talking went on again.