s you, yes! Why, the two seemed cut out for each other, so
young and so good-looking! It was quite a pleasure to look at them as
they came down-stairs of a Sunday to take the only walk, poor things!
they could afford themselves throughout the week; she dressed in a smart
little cap and a gown that cost, probably, not more than twenty-five
sous the ell, but made by herself, and that so tastily that it became
her as much as though it had been of satin; he, mind ye, dressed and
looking like a regular gentleman."

"And M. Germain has not been to see Mlle. Rigolette, I suppose, since he
quitted the house?"

"No, monsieur; unless on Sunday, for Mlle. Rigolette has no time during
the other six days of the week to think of sweethearting. Why, the poor
girl rises at five or six o'clock, and works incessantly till ten or
eleven o'clock at night, never once leaving her room except for a few
minutes in the morning, when she goes out to buy food for herself and
her two canary-birds; and the three eat but very little, just a
penn'orth of milk, a little bread, some chickweed, bird-seed, and clear
fresh water, and the whole three of them sing away as merrily as though
they fared ever so sumptuously. And Mlle. Rigolette is kind and
charitable, too, as far as lies in her power; that is to say, she gives
her time, her sleep, and her services; for, poor girl! she can scarcely
manage to keep herself by working closely for twelve hours a day. Those
poor, unfortunate creatures in the attics, whom M. Bras Rouge is going
to turn into the streets in two or three days' time, if even he wait so
long,--why, Mlle. Rigolette and M. Germain sat up with the children
night after night!"

"You have a distressed family, then, here?"

"Distressed! Oh, God bless you, my good sir, I think we have, indeed.
Why, there are five young children, an almost dying mother, an idiotic
grandmother, and their only support a man who, though he slaves like a
negro, cannot even get bread enough to eat,--and a capital workman he
is, too; three hours' sleep out of the twenty-four is all he allows
himself,--and what sleep it is! broken by his children crying for food,
by the groans of his sick wife tossing on her miserable straw bed, or
the idiotic screams of the poor bedridden old grandmother, who sometimes
howls like a wolf,--from hunger, too,--for, poor creature! she has not
sense or reason to know better, and when she gets very hungry you may
hear cries and screams al