he whitest
surmounted a face perfectly oval and of angelic expression, such as we
see in Raphael's beauties. She was also called "Fleur-de-Marie,"
doubtless on account of the maiden purity of her countenance. She, too,
had never known her parents. When she was about seven years of age she
lived with an old and one-eyed woman, called Screech-Owl because her
hooked nose and round green eye made her resemble an owl that had lost
its eye. She taunted the child with being picked up from the streets and
sent her out begging, rewarding her with beatings if she did not bring
her at least six pence at night, until at last she ran away from
Screech-Owl and hid in a wood-yard for the night. Next day she was
found, taken before a magistrate and sent to a reformatory as a vagrant
until she was sixteen. It was a perfect paradise compared to
Screech-Owl's miserable roost. But when she came out she fell into the
hands of the Ogress who kept the inn they were now in. The clothes she
stood in belonged to the Ogress, she owed her for board and lodgings and
could not stir from her or she must be taken up as a thief.

Rudolph (for so we shall call the defender of La Goualeuse) listened
with deep interest to her recital, made with touching frankness. Misery,
destitution, ignorance of the world, had destroyed this wretched girl,
cast alone and unprotected on the immensity of Paris. He involuntarily
thought of a beloved child whom he had lost, who had died at six, and
would have been, had she lived, like Fleur-de-Marie, sixteen and a half
years old.

Rudolph appeared to be about thirty-six, tall, graceful, of a
contemplative air, yet with a haughty and imperious, carriage of the
head. In other respects he sported with ease the language and manners
which gave him a perfect resemblance to the Ogress's other guests. He
represented himself as a painter of fans.

Presently the Schoolmaster entered the inn, with a woman. He was a
powerful, fleshy fellow with a face mutilated and scarred in a most
horribly repugnant fashion. The woman was old and her green eye, hooked
nose, and countenance, at once reminded Rudolph of the horrible woman of
whom Goualeuse had been the victim. Suddenly seizing his arm, Goualeuse
whispered "Oh! The Owl! The one-eyed woman!"

At this moment the Schoolmaster approached the table and said to Rudolph
"If you don't hand the wench over to me, I'll smash you."

"For the love of heaven, defend me," cried Goualeuse to Rudol