"Stuff and nonsense!" retorted La Normande. "You can never be sure about
those smug, sleek hypocrites."

Mademoiselle Saget nodded her head as if to say that she was not
very far from sharing La Normande's opinion. And she softly added:
"Especially as this cousin has sprung from no one knows where; for it's
a very doubtful sort of account that the Quenus give of him."

"Oh, he's the fat woman's sweetheart, I tell you!" reaffirmed the
fish-girl; "some scamp or vagabond picked up in the streets. It's easy
enough to see it."

"She has given him a complete outfit," remarked Madame Lecoeur. "He must
be costing her a pretty penny."

"Yes, yes," muttered the old maid; "perhaps you are right. I must really
get to know something about him."

Then they all promised to keep one another thoroughly informed of
whatever might take place in the Quenu-Gradelle establishment. The
butter dealer pretended that she wished to open her brother-in-law's
eyes as to the sort of places he frequented. However, La Normande's
anger had by this time toned down, and, a good sort of girl at heart,
she went off, weary of having talked so much on the matter.

"I'm sure that La Normande said something or other insolent," remarked
Madame Lecoeur knowingly, when the fish-girl had left them. "It is just
her way; and it scarcely becomes a creature like her to talk as she did
of Lisa."

The three women looked at each other and smiled. Then, when Madame
Lecoeur also had gone off, La Sarriette remarked to Mademoiselle Saget:
"It is foolish of my aunt to worry herself so much about all these
affairs. It's that which makes her so thin. Ah! she'd have willingly
taken Gavard for a husband if she could only have got him. Yet she used
to beat me if ever a young man looked my way."

Mademoiselle Saget smiled once more. And when she found herself alone,
and went back towards the Rue Pirouette, she reflected that those three
cackling hussies were not worth a rope to hang them. She was, indeed,
a little afraid that she might have been seen with them, and the idea
somewhat troubled her, for she realised that it would be bad policy to
fall out with the Quenu-Gradelles, who, after all, were well-to-do folks
and much esteemed. So she went a little out of her way on purpose to
call at Taboureau the baker's in the Rue Turbigo--the finest baker's
shop in the whole neighbourhood. Madame Taboureau was not only an
intimate friend of Lisa's, but an accepted authority on e