came in every day
to the Champs Elysees, sounding her rattle and crying: "_Ladies'
pleasures_, come buy, come buy!" And with all this toil the old couple
could not scrape enough together to end their days in comfort.

Seeing the young man beside her disposed to commiserate with her, she
expounded at great length the origin of her misfortunes. It was all the
Republic; by robbing the rich, it was taking the bread out of poor
people's mouths. And there was no hoping for a better state of affairs.
Things would only go from bad to worse,--she knew that from many tokens.
At Nanterre a woman had had a baby born with a serpent's head; the
lightning had struck the church at Rueil and melted the cross on the
steeple; a were-wolf had been seen in the woods of Chaville. Masked men
were poisoning the springs and throwing plague powders in the air to
cause diseases....

Evariste saw Elodie spring from a carriage and run forward. The girl's
eyes flashed in the clear shadow cast by her straw hat; her lips, as red
as the carnations she held in her hand, were wreathed in smiles. A scarf
of black silk, crossed over the bosom, was knotted behind the back. Her
yellow gown displayed the quick movements of the knees and showed a pair
of low-heeled shoes below the hem. The hips were almost entirely
unconfined; the Revolution had enfranchised the waists of its
_citoyennes_. For all that, the skirts, still puffed out below the
loins, marked the curves by exaggerating them and veiled the reality
beneath an artificial amplitude of outline.

He tried to speak but could not find his voice, and was chagrined at his
failure, which Elodie preferred to the most eloquent greeting. She
noticed also and looked upon it as a good omen, that he had tied his
cravat with more than usual pains.

She gave him her hand.

"I wanted to see you," she began, "and talk to you. I did not answer
your letter; I did not like it and I did not think it worthy of you. It
would have been more to my taste if it had been more outspoken. It would
be to malign your character and common sense to suppose you do not mean
to return to the _Amour peintre_ because you had a trifling altercation
there about politics with a man many years your senior. Rest assured you
have no cause to fear my father will receive you ill whenever you come
to see us again. You do not know him; he has forgotten both what he said
to you and what you said in reply. I do not say there is any great bond
of