an immense population,
acquires daily an almost incalculable amount.

* * * * *

Goualeuse, repressing the emotion which this sad confession of her
companion had made in her, said to her, timidly:

"Listen to me without being angry."

"Well, what have you to say? I think I have gossiped enough; but it is
no matter, as it is the last time we shall talk together."

"Are you happy, La Louve?"

"What do you mean?"

"Does the life you lead make you happy?"

"Here,--at St. Lazare?"

"No; when you are at home and free."

"Yes, I am happy."

"Always?"

"Always."

"You would not change your life for any other?"

"For any other? What--what other life can there be for me?"

"Tell me, La Louve," continued Fleur-de-Marie, after a moment's silence,
"don't you sometimes like to build castles in the air? It is so amusing
in prison."

"Castles in the air! About what?"

"About Martial."

"About my man?"

"Yes."

"_Ma foi!_ I never built any."

"Let me build one for you and Martial."

"Bah! What's the use of it?"

"To pass away time."

"Well, let's have your castle in the air."

"Well, then, only imagine that a lucky chance, such as sometimes occurs,
brings you in contact with a person who says, 'Forsaken by your father
and mother, your infancy was surrounded by such bad examples that you
must be pitied, as much as blamed, for having become--'"

"Become what?"

"What you and I have become," replied Goualeuse, in a soft voice; and
then she continued, "Suppose, then, that this person were to say to you,
'You love Martial; he loves you. Do you and he cease to lead an improper
life,--instead of being his mistress, become his wife.'"

La Louve shrugged her shoulders.

"Do you think he would have me for his wife?"

"Except poaching, he has never committed any guilty act, has he?"

"No; he is a poacher in the river, as he was in the woods, and he is
right. Why, now, ain't fish like game, for those to have who can catch
them? Where do they bear the proprietor's mark?"

"Well, suppose that, having given up the dangerous trade of marauding on
the river, he desires to become an honest man; suppose he inspires, by
the frankness of his good resolutions, so much confidence in an unknown
benefactor that he gives him a situation,--let us see, our castle is in
the air,--gives him a situation--say as gamekeeper, for instance. Why, I
should suppose that, as he had been a poacher, no