the roof. This was the maid's opportunity, and gratefully licking her anticipative chops, she crawled to the gutter.

"Bonne Suzanne! Viens donc! Come, come, Suzanne!" cried the boy.

Of a sudden a smart box on the ear broke up this pretty love-affair. There stood Tomas.

"A nice choir-boy! Talking with that beast of a grisette!" Then there were more liberal whacks as the boy, in a rage, was dragged away, and bidden to come down-stairs and carry to market the nets used in place of baskets. Tomas usually went alone to buy provisions, but now the choir-boy was free and could be made of use.

François uttered no complaint. It was literally the only time he had had a chance to be in the streets, except as part of the procession to and from the church. He was sore, angry, and resentful of the ill usage which in the last few days had taken the place of the growing respect his talent had created. He took the nets and his cap, and followed Tomas. "What a chance!" he thought to himself.

The boy concealed the delight he felt, and followed the steward, who went down to the river and across it to the open market on the farther bank. He stopped here and there to buy provisions and to chat with the market-women. When one of them, pleased with the odd-looking lad, gave him an apple, Tomas took it from him. François laughed, which seemed always to offend the saturnine steward. He could not destroy the pleasure of the gay market for François, who made queer faces at the mistresses of the stalls, teased the dogs and cats for sale in cages, and generally made himself happy until they came home again.

But from this time onward, except for these excursions, his life was made miserable enough. He was the slave of Tomas, and was cruelly reminded day after day of the misery of him who has a servant for his master.

At last he learned that the time was near when he must go to Auteuil. His voice had been tested again, and he had been told that there was small hope of its return. He began to think of escape. Once he was sent alone on an errand to a shop near by. He lingered to see some street-jugglers, and paid for it with a day in a damp cellar. Within this sad home he now found only reproaches and unthanked labor. The choristers laughed at him, and the happier boys mocked his changed voice. On the day after his last experience of the cellar, he was told by Tomas to be ready to go to Auteuil, and was ordered once again to follow the steward to market. He took up the nets and went after him. The lad looked back at the choir-house. He meant to see it no more. He was now seventeen, and in the three years of his stay had learned many things, some good and some bad.

They went past Notre Dame to the quai, and through rows of stalls along the shores of the Seine. Tomas soon filled the nets, which were hung over François's shoulders. Meanwhile the chattering women, the birds and cages, the flowers, the moving, many-colored crowd, amused or pleased the boy, but by no means turned him from his purpose.

"Come!" cried Tomas, and began to elbow his way through the noisy people on the river-bank. Presently François got behind him, and noting his chances with a ready eye, slipped through between the booths and darted up the Seine.