e I was pursuing my
deductions, I had blacked my boots, brushed my coat, and tied my
cravat; I had at last arrived at the important moment when we pronounce
complacently that all is finished, and that well.

A grand resolve had just decided me to depart from my usual habits. The
evening before, I had seen by the advertisements that the next day was
a holiday at Sevres, and that the china manufactory would be open to the
public. I was tempted by the beauty of the morning, and suddenly decided
to go there.

On my arrival at the station on the left bank, I noticed the crowd
hurrying on in the fear of being late. Railroads, besides many other
advantages, possess that of teaching the French punctuality. They will
submit to the clock when they are convinced that it is their master;
they will learn to wait when they find they will not be waited for.
Social virtues, are, in a great degree, good habits. How many great
qualities are grafted into nations by their geographical position, by
political necessity, and by institutions! Avarice was destroyed for a
time among the Lacedaemonians by the creation of an iron coinage, too
heavy and too bulky to be conveniently hoarded.

I found myself in a carriage with two middle-aged women belonging to the
domestic and retired class of Parisians I have spoken of above. A few
civilities were sufficient to gain me their confidence, and after some
minutes I was acquainted with their whole history.

They were two poor sisters, left orphans at fifteen, and had lived ever
since, as those who work for their livelihood must live, by economy
and privation. For the last twenty or thirty years they had worked
in jewelry in the same house; they had seen ten masters succeed one
another, and make their fortunes in it, without any change in their own
lot. They had always lived in the same room, at the end of one of the
passages in the Rue St. Denis, where the air and the sun are unknown.
They began their work before daylight, went on with it till after
nightfall, and saw year succeed to year without their lives being marked
by any other events than the Sunday service, a walk, or an illness.

The younger of these worthy work-women was forty, and obeyed her sister
as she did when a child. The elder looked after her, took care of her,
and scolded her with a mother's tenderness. At first it was amusing;
afterward one could not help seeing something affecting in these two
gray-haired children, one unable t