hey had has
passed into her hands, and even their last mattress; but they were not
long coming to the last, for they never had but two."

"But she gave them no further aid?"

"Help them, poor creatures! Not she. Mother Burette is as great a brute
in her way as her lover, M. Bras Rouge, is in his; for between you and
I," added the porteress, with an uncommonly knowing wink of the eye and
sagacious shake of the head, "there is something rather tender going on
between these two."

"Really!" cried Rodolph.

"I think so,--I do, upon my life. And why not? Why, the folks in St.
Martin are as loving as the rest of the world; are they not, my old
pet?"

A melancholy shake of the head, which produced a corresponding motion in
the huge black hat, was M. Pipelet's only answer. As for Madame Pipelet,
since she had begun expressing sympathy for the poor sufferers in the
attics, her countenance had ceased to strike Rodolph as repulsive, and
he even thought it wore an agreeable expression.

"And what is this poor Morel's trade?"

"A maker of false jewelry; he works by the piece; but, dear me! that
sort of work is so much imitated, and so cheaply got up that--For a man
can but work his best, and he cannot do more than he can; besides, when
you have got to find bread for seven persons without reckoning yourself,
it is rather a hard job, I take it. And though his eldest daughter does
her best to assist the family, she has but very little in her power."

"How old is this daughter?"

"About eighteen, and as lovely a young creature as you would see in a
long summer's day. She lives as servant with an old miserly fellow, rich
enough to buy and sell half Paris,--a notary, named M. Jacques Ferrand."

"M. Jacques Ferrand!" exclaimed Rodolph, surprised at the fresh
coincidence which brought under his notice the very individual from
whom, or from whose confidential housekeeper, he expected to glean so
many particulars relative to La Goualeuse. "M. Jacques Ferrand, who
lives in the Rue du Sentier, do you mean?" inquired he.

"The very same; are you acquainted with him?"

"Not at all; but he does the law business for the firm I belong to."

"Ah! then you must know that he is a regular money-grubbing old usurer;
but then, let me do the man justice. He is strictly religious, and
devout as a monk; never absent from mass or vespers, making his Easter
offerings, and going regularly to confession. If he ever enjoys himself,
it is only alon