astonishment
at the marvel.

Madeleine declares that such a sight is worth the expense of the
journey, and Frances would have agreed with her if she had not
recollected, with some little alarm, the deficit which such an expense
must make in their budget. The three francs spent upon this single
expedition were the savings of a whole week of work. Thus the joy of the
elder of the two sisters was mixed with remorse; the prodigal child now
and then turned its eyes toward the back street of St. Denis.

But the motion and the succession of objects distract her. See the
bridge of the Val surrounded by its lovely landscape: on the right,
Paris with its grand monuments, which rise through the fog, or sparkle
in the sun; on the left, Meudon, with its villas, its woods, its vines,
and its royal castle! The two work-women look from one window to the
other with exclamations of delight. One fellow-passenger laughs at their
childish wonder; but to me it is deeply touching, for I see in it the
sign of a long and monotonous seclusion: they are the prisoners of work,
who have recovered liberty and fresh air for a few hours.

At last the train stops, and we get out. I show the two sisters the path
that leads to Sevres, between the railway and the gardens, and they go
on before, while I inquire about the time of returning.

I soon join them again at the next station, where they have stopped at
the little garden belonging to the gatekeeper; both are already in deep
conversation with him while he digs his garden-borders, and marks out
the places for flower-seeds. He informs them that it is the time for
hoeing out weeds, for making grafts and layers, for sowing annuals, and
for destroying the insects on the rose-trees. Madeleine has on the sill
of her window two wooden boxes, in which, for want of air and sun, she
has never been able to make anything grow but mustard and cress; but she
persuades herself that, thanks to this information, all other plants
may henceforth thrive in them. At last the gatekeeper, who is sowing a
border with mignonette, gives her the rest of the seeds which he does
not want, and the old maid goes off delighted, and begins to act over
again the dream of Paired and her can of milk, with these flowers of her
imagination.

On reaching the grove of acacias, where the fair was going on, I lost
sight of the two sisters. I went alone among the sights: there were
lotteries going on, mountebank shows, places for eating