of those huge birds with outspread pinions
that one hears of in the fairy tales.

As time went on their childish affection took the inevitable turn.
Veritable offsprings of Nature, knowing naught of social conventions and
restraints, they loved one another in all innocence and guilelessness.
They mated even as the birds of the air mate, even as youth and maid
mated in primeval times, because such is Nature's law. At sixteen
Cadine was a dusky town gipsy, greedy and sensual, whilst Marjolin, now
eighteen, was a tall, strapping fellow, as handsome a youth as could
be met, but still with his mental faculties quite undeveloped. He had
lived, indeed, a mere animal life, which had strengthened his frame, but
left his intellect in a rudimentary state.

When old Madame Chantemesse realised the turn that things were taking
she wrathfully upbraided Cadine and struck out vigorously at her with
her broom. But the hussy only laughed and dodged the blows, and then
hied off to her lover. And gradually the markets became their home,
their manger, their aviary, where they lived and loved amidst the meat,
the butter, the vegetables, and the feathers.

They discovered another little paradise in the pavilion where butter,
eggs, and cheese were sold wholesale. Enormous walls of empty baskets
were here piled up every morning, and amidst these Cadine and Marjolin
burrowed and hollowed out a dark lair for themselves. A mere partition
of osier-work separated them from the market crowd, whose loud voices
rang out all around them. They often shook with laughter when people,
without the least suspicion of their presence, stopped to talk together
a few yards away from them. On these occasions they would contrive
peepholes, and spy through them, and when cherries were in season Cadine
tossed the stones in the faces of all the old women who passed along--a
pastime which amused them the more as the startled old crones could
never make out whence the hail of cherry-stones had come. They also
prowled about the depths of the cellars, knowing every gloomy corner of
them, and contriving to get through the most carefully locked gates. One
of their favourite amusements was to visit the track of the subterranean
railway, which had been laid under the markets, and which those who
planned the latter had intended to connect with the different goods'
stations of Paris. Sections of this railway were laid beneath each
of the covered ways, between the cellars of