were directing their steps
towards the same spot, coming up along the water's edge from the
Chatelet, towards the Greve.

Two of these women were dressed like good _bourgeoises_ of Paris. Their
fine white ruffs; their petticoats of linsey-woolsey, striped red and
blue; their white knitted stockings, with clocks embroidered in colors,
well drawn upon their legs; the square-toed shoes of tawny leather with
black soles, and, above all, their headgear, that sort of tinsel horn,
loaded down with ribbons and laces, which the women of Champagne still
wear, in company with the grenadiers of the imperial guard of Russia,
announced that they belonged to that class wives which holds the middle
ground between what the lackeys call a woman and what they term a lady.
They wore neither rings nor gold crosses, and it was easy to see that,
in their ease, this did not proceed from poverty, but simply from
fear of being fined. Their companion was attired in very much the same
manner; but there was that indescribable something about her dress and
bearing which suggested the wife of a provincial notary. One could see,
by the way in which her girdle rose above her hips, that she had not
been long in Paris.--Add to this a plaited tucker, knots of ribbon
on her shoes--and that the stripes of her petticoat ran horizontally
instead of vertically, and a thousand other enormities which shocked
good taste.

The two first walked with that step peculiar to Parisian ladies, showing
Paris to women from the country. The provincial held by the hand a big
boy, who held in his a large, flat cake.

We regret to be obliged to add, that, owing to the rigor of the season,
he was using his tongue as a handkerchief.

The child was making them drag him along, _non passibus Cequis_, as
Virgil says, and stumbling at every moment, to the great indignation of
his mother. It is true that he was looking at his cake more than at the
pavement. Some serious motive, no doubt, prevented his biting it (the
cake), for he contented himself with gazing tenderly at it. But the
mother should have rather taken charge of the cake. It was cruel to make
a Tantalus of the chubby-checked boy.

Meanwhile, the three demoiselles (for the name of dames was then
reserved for noble women) were all talking at once.

"Let us make haste, Demoiselle Mahiette," said the youngest of the
three, who was also the largest, to the provincial, "I greatly fear that
we shall arrive too late; they