ed Gradelle, Quenu, and even the
smallest kitchen-boy. For his part, Quenu would have cut off his fingers
to please her. When she happened to smile, he remained rooted to the
floor, laughing with delight as he gazed at her.

Lisa was the eldest daughter of the Macquarts of Plassans, and her
father was still alive.[*] But she said that he was abroad, and never
wrote to him. Sometimes she just dropped a hint that her mother, now
deceased, had been a hard worker, and that she took after her. She
worked, indeed, very assiduously. However, she sometimes added that
the worthy woman had slaved herself to death in striving to support her
family. Then she would speak of the respective duties of husband and
wife in such a practical though modest fashion as to enchant Quenu. He
assured her that he fully shared her ideas. These were that everyone,
man or woman, ought to work for his or her living, that everyone was
charged with the duty of achieving personal happiness, that great harm
was done by encouraging habits of idleness, and that the presence of so
much misery in the world was greatly due to sloth. This theory of hers
was a sweeping condemnation of drunkenness, of all the legendary loafing
ways of her father Macquart. But, though she did not know it, there was
much of Macquart's nature in herself. She was merely a steady, sensible
Macquart with a logical desire for comfort, having grasped the truth
of the proverb that as you make your bed so you lie on it. To sleep in
blissful warmth there is no better plan than to prepare oneself a soft
and downy couch; and to the preparation of such a couch she gave all
her time and all her thoughts. When no more than six years old she
had consented to remain quietly on her chair the whole day through on
condition that she should be rewarded with a cake in the evening.

[*] See M. Zola's novel, _The Fortune of the Rougons_.--Translator

At Gradelle's establishment Lisa went on leading the calm, methodical
life which her exquisite smiles illumined. She had not accepted the pork
butcher's offer at random. She reckoned upon finding a guardian in him;
with the keen scent of those who are born lucky she perhaps foresaw that
the gloomy shop in the Rue Pirouette would bring her the comfortable
future she dreamed of--a life of healthy enjoyment, and work without
fatigue, each hour of which would bring its own reward. She attended to
her counter with the quiet earnestness with which she had waited