ll of water. And so
we don't know what to do, for we've had nothing left since yesterday, and
if Uncle Toussaint can't lend us twenty sous it'll be all over."

She was still smiling in her unconscious way, but two big tears had
gathered in her eyes. And the sight of the child shut up in that bare
room, apart from all the happy ones of earth, so upset the priest that he
again felt his anger with want and misery awakening. Then, another ten
minutes having elapsed, he became impatient, for he had to go to the
Grandidier works before returning home.

"I don't know why Mamma Theodore doesn't come back," repeated Celine.
"Perhaps she's chatting." Then, an idea occurring to her she continued:
"I'll take you to my Uncle Toussaint's, Monsieur l'Abbe, if you like.
It's close by, just round the corner."

"But you have no shoes, my child."

"Oh! that don't matter, I walk all the same."

Thereupon he rose from the chair and said simply: "Well, yes, that will
be better, take me there. And I'll buy you some shoes."

Celine turned quite pink, and then made haste to follow him after
carefully locking the door of the room like a good little housewife,
though, truth to tell, there was nothing worth stealing in the place.

In the meantime it had occurred to Madame Theodore that before calling on
her brother Toussaint to try to borrow a franc from him, she might first
essay her luck with her younger sister, Hortense, who had married little
Chretiennot, the clerk, and occupied a flat of four rooms on the
Boulevard de Rochechouart. This was quite an affair, however, and the
poor woman only made the venture because Celine had been fasting since
the previous day.

Eugene Toussaint, the mechanician, a man of fifty, was her stepbrother,
by the first marriage contracted by her father. A young dressmaker whom
the latter had subsequently wedded, had borne him three daughters,
Pauline, Leonie and Hortense. And on his death, his son Eugene, who
already had a wife and child of his own, had found himself for a short
time with his stepmother and sisters on his hands. The stepmother,
fortunately, was an active and intelligent woman, and knew how to get out
of difficulties. She returned to her former workroom where her daughter
Pauline was already apprenticed, and she next placed Leonie there; so
that Hortense, the youngest girl, who was a spoilt child, prettier and
more delicate than her sisters, was alone left at school. And, later
on,--after Pa