et, where crowds of
people were swarming at the end of their day's work. No! no! Maria did
not care for Amedee. Louise was very sure of it; but at all events it
was necessary that she should try to snatch her young sister from the
discouragements and bad counsel of poverty. Amedee loved her and would
know how to make her love him. In order to assure their happiness these
two young people must be united. As to herself, what matter! If they had
children she would accept in advance her duties as coddling aunt and
old godmother. Provided, of course, that Maria would be guided, or, at
least, that she would consent. She was so pretty that she was a trifle
vain. She was nourishing, perhaps, nobody knew what fancy or vain hope,
based upon her beauty and youth. Louise had grave fears. The poor girl,
with her thin, bent shoulders wrapped up in an old black shawl, had
already forgotten her own grief and only thought of the happiness of
others, as she slowly dragged herself up Montmartre Hill. When
she reached the butcher's shop in front of the mayor's office, she
remembered a request of her mother's; and as is always the case with the
poor, a trivial detail is mixed with the drama of life. Louise, without
forgetting her thoughts, while sacrificing her own heart, went into the
shop and picked out two breaded cutlets and had them done up in brown
paper, for their evening's repast.

The day after his conversation with Louise, Amedee felt that distressing
impatience that waiting causes nervous people. The day at the office
seemed unending, and in order to escape solitude, at five o'clock he
went to Maurice's studio, where he had not been for fifteen days. He
found him alone, and the young artist also seemed preoccupied. While
Amedee congratulated him upon a study placed upon an easel, Maurice
walked up and down the room with his hands in his pocket, and eyes upon
the floor, making no reply to his friend's compliments. Suddenly he
stopped and looking at Amedee said:

"Have you seen the Gerard ladies during the past few days?"

Maurice had not spoken of these ladies for several months, and the poet
was a trifle surprised.

"Yes," he replied. "Not later than yesterday I met Mademoiselle Louise."

"And," replied Maurice, in a hesitating manner, "were all the family
well?"

"Yes."

"Ah!" said the artist, in a strange voice, and he resumed his silent
promenade.

Amedee always had a slightly unpleasant sensation when Maurice spoke