eper touched by this page of simple grief, Florine turned
over several leaves, and continued:

"I have just been to the funeral of poor little Victorine Herbin, our
neighbor. Her father, a journeyman upholsterer, is gone to work by the
month, far from Paris. She died at nineteen, without a relation near
her. Her agony was not long. The good woman who attended her to the
last, told us that she only pronounced these words: 'At last, oh at
last!' and that with an air of satisfaction, added the nurse. Dear
child! she had become so pitiful. At fifteen, she was a rosebud--so
pretty, so fresh-looking, with her light hair as soft as silk; but she
wasted away by degrees--her trade of renovating mattresses killed her.
She was slowly poisoned by the emanations from the wool.(26) They were
all the worse, that she worked almost entirely for the poor, who have
cheap stuff to lie upon.

"She had the courage of a lion, and an angel's resignation, She always
said to me, in her low, faint voice, broken by a dry and frequent cough:
'I have not long to live, breathing, as I do, lime and vitriol all day
long. I spit blood, and have spasms that make me faint.'

"'Why not change your trade?' have I said to her.

"'Where will I find the time to make another apprenticeship?' she would
answer; 'and it is now too late. I feel that I am done for. It is not my
fault,' added the good creature, 'for I did not choose my employment.
My father would have it so; luckily he can do without me. And then, you
see, when one is dead, one cares for nothing, and has no fear of "slop
wages."'

"Victorine uttered that sad, common phrase very sincerely, and with a
sort of satisfaction. Therefore she died repeating: 'At last!'

"It is painful to think that the labor by which the poor man earns his
daily bread, often becomes a long suicide! I said this the other day to
Agricola; he answered me that there were many other fatal employments;
those who prepare aquafortis, white lead, or minium, for instance, are
sure to take incurable maladies of which they die.

"'Do you know,' added Agricola, 'what they say when they start for those
fatal works?'--Why, 'We are going to the slaughter-house.'

"That made me tremble with its terrible truth.

"'And all this takes place in our day,' said I to him, with an aching
heart; 'and it is well-known. And, out of so many of the rich and
powerful, no one thinks of the mortality which decimates his brothers,
thus forced to ea