It may be supposed, therefore, that the instincts of morality in these children were doubtful and precarious, especially those of François, who had reached that dangerous time of life when the mind pauses, and, oscillating between good and evil, might be in a moment lost or saved.
"How well you look in that handkerchief, sister!" said François; "it is very pretty. When we go to play on the shore by the chalk-burner's lime-kiln you must dress yourself in this manner, to make the children jealous who pelt us with stones and call us little guillotines. And I shall put on my nice red cravat, and we will say to them, 'Never mind, you haven't such pretty silk handkerchiefs as we have!'"
"But, I say, François," said Amandine, after a moment's reflection, "if they knew that the handkerchiefs we wear were stolen, they would call us little thieves."
"Well, and what should we care if they did call us little thieves?"
"Why, not at all, if it were not true. But now--"
"Since Nicholas gave us these handkerchiefs, we didn't steal them!"
"No; but he took them out of a barge; and Brother Martial says no one ought to steal."
"But, as Nicholas states, that is no affair of ours."
"Still, it seems to me that I would rather the person who really owns them had given them to us. What do you say, François?"
"Oh, it's all one to me! They were given to us, and so they're ours."
"Why, yes--yes; make yourself easy about that."
"So much the better, then, for we are not doing what Brother Martial forbids, and we have such nice handkerchiefs!"
"But, Amandine, if he had known the other day that Calabash had made you take the plaid handkerchief from the peddler's pack whilst his back was turned?"
"Oh, François, don't talk about it; I have been so very sorry. But I was really forced to do it, for my sister pinched me until the blood came, and looked at me so--oh, in such a way! And yet my heart failed me twice, and I thought I never could do it. The peddler didn't find it out; yet, if they had caught me, François, I should have been sent to prison."
"But you weren't caught; so it's just the same as if you had not stolen."
"Why, you know the fat cripple who lodges at Father Micou's, the man who buys all Nicholas's things, and keeps a lodging-house in the Passage de la Brasserie?"