neck, you know. It's much more soft and
transparent than the camellia, and there are some little blue and pink
veins just like the pencillings on a flower." Then, drawing near and
sniffing, he murmured: "Ah! you smell of orange blossom to-day."

Cadine was self-willed, and did not get on well in the position of a
servant, so she ended by setting up in business on her own account. As
she was only thirteen at the time, and could not hope for a big trade
and a stall in the flower avenue, she took to selling one-sou bunches
of violets pricked into a bed of moss in an osier tray which she carried
hanging from her neck. All day long she wandered about the markets and
their precincts with her little bit of hanging garden. She loved this
continual stroll, which relieved the numbness of her limbs after long
hours spent, with bent knees, on a low chair, making bouquets. She
fastened her violets together with marvellous deftness as she walked
along. She counted out six or eight flowers, according to the season,
doubled a sprig of cane in half, added a leaf, twisted some damp thread
round the whole, and broke off the thread with her strong young teeth.
The little bunches seemed to spring spontaneously from the layer of
moss, so rapidly did she stick them into it.

Along the footways, amidst the jostling of the street traffic, her
nimble fingers were ever flowering though she gave them not a glance,
but boldly scanned the shops and passers-by. Sometimes she would rest in
a doorway for a moment; and alongside the gutters, greasy with kitchen
slops, she sat, as it were a patch of springtime, a suggestion of green
woods, and purple blossoms. Her flowers still betokened her frame of
mind, her fits of bad temper and her thrills of tenderness. Sometimes
they bristled and glowered with anger amidst their crumpled leaves; at
other times they spoke only of love and peacefulness as they smiled in
their prim collars. As Cadine passed along, she left a sweet perfume
behind her; Marjolin followed her devoutly. From head to foot she now
exhaled but one scent, and the lad repeated that she was herself a
violet, a great big violet.

"Do you remember the day when we went to Romainville together?" he would
say; "Romainville, where there are so many violets. The scent was just
the same. Oh! don't change again--you smell too sweetly."

And she did not change again. This was her last trade. Still, she often
neglected her osier tray to go rambling ab