ox to keep her feet out of the damp, and appeared very tall as he
glanced at her. She looked also handsomer than usual, with her
hair arranged in little curls, her sly face slightly bent, her lips
compressed, and her hands showing somewhat too rosily against her big
white apron. Florent had never before seen her decked with so much
jewellery. She had long pendants in her ears, a chain round her neck, a
brooch in her dress body, and quite a collection of rings on two fingers
of her left hand and one of her right.

As she still continued to look slyly at Florent, without making any
reply, the latter continued: "Do you hear? You must remove that skate."

He had not yet noticed the presence of old Madame Mehudin, who sat all
of a heap on a chair in a corner. She now got up, however, and, with her
fists resting on the marble slap, insolently exclaimed: "Dear me! And
why is she to throw her skate away? You won't pay her for it, I'll bet!"

Florent immediately understood the position. The women at the other
stalls began to titter, and he felt that he was surrounded by covert
rebellion, which a word might cause to blaze forth. He therefore
restrained himself, and in person drew the refuse-pail from under the
stall and dropped the skate into it. Old Madame Mehudin had already
stuck her hands on her hips, while the beautiful Norman, who had not
spoken a word, burst into another malicious laugh as Florent strode
sternly away amidst a chorus of jeers, which he pretended not to hear.

Each day now some new trick was played upon him, and he was obliged to
walk through the market alleys as warily as though he were in a hostile
country. He was splashed with water from the sponges employed to
cleanse the slabs; he stumbled and almost fell over slippery refuse
intentionally spread in his way; and even the porters contrived to run
their baskets against the nape of his neck. One day, moreover, when two
of the fish-wives were quarrelling, and he hastened up to prevent them
coming to blows, he was obliged to duck in order to escape being slapped
on either cheek by a shower of little dabs which passed over his head.
There was a general outburst of laughter on this occasion, and Florent
always believed that the two fish-wives were in league with the
Mehudins. However, his old-time experiences as a teacher had endowed
him with angelic patience, and he was able to maintain a magisterial
coolness of manner even when anger was hotly rising withi