the further end of it; _line_-trees, as Mme.
Vauquer persists in calling them, in spite of the fact that she was a de
Conflans, and regardless of repeated corrections from her lodgers.

The central space between the walls is filled with artichokes and
rows of pyramid fruit-trees, and surrounded by a border of lettuce,
pot-herbs, and parsley. Under the lime-trees there are a few
green-painted garden seats and a wooden table, and hither, during the
dog-days, such of the lodgers as are rich enough to indulge in a cup
of coffee come to take their pleasure, though it is hot enough to roast
eggs even in the shade.

The house itself is three stories high, without counting the attics
under the roof. It is built of rough stone, and covered with the
yellowish stucco that gives a mean appearance to almost every house in
Paris. There are five windows in each story in the front of the house;
all the blinds visible through the small square panes are drawn up awry,
so that the lines are all at cross purposes. At the side of the house
there are but two windows on each floor, and the lowest of all are
adorned with a heavy iron grating.

Behind the house a yard extends for some twenty feet, a space inhabited
by a happy family of pigs, poultry, and rabbits; the wood-shed is
situated on the further side, and on the wall between the wood-shed and
the kitchen window hangs the meat-safe, just above the place where the
sink discharges its greasy streams. The cook sweeps all the refuse
out through a little door into the Rue Nueve-Sainte-Genevieve, and
frequently cleanses the yard with copious supplies of water, under pain
of pestilence.

The house might have been built on purpose for its present uses. Access
is given by a French window to the first room on the ground floor, a
sitting-room which looks out upon the street through the two barred
windows already mentioned. Another door opens out of it into the
dining-room, which is separated from the kitchen by the well of the
staircase, the steps being constructed partly of wood, partly of tiles,
which are colored and beeswaxed. Nothing can be more depressing than
the sight of that sitting-room. The furniture is covered with horse hair
woven in alternate dull and glossy stripes. There is a round table in
the middle, with a purplish-red marble top, on which there stands, by
way of ornament, the inevitable white china tea-service, covered with
a half-effaced gilt network. The floor is sufficient