o which they looked forward for
a week. They came running up the stairway behind the pastry-cook's men.
At table they ate too much without being scolded. At night, they were
unwilling to go to bed, they climbed on the chairs and made a racket
that always gave Mademoiselle de Varandeuil a sick headache the next
day; but she bore them no grudge therefor: she had had the full
enjoyment of a genuine grandmother's fete, in listening to them, looking
at them, tying around their necks the white napkins that made them look
so rosy. And not for anything in the world would she have failed to give
this dinner-party, which filled her old maid's apartments with the
fair-haired little imps of Satan, and brought thither, in a single day,
an atmosphere of activity and youth and laughter that lasted a whole
year.

Germinie was preparing the dinner. She was whipping cream in an earthen
bowl on her knees, when suddenly she felt the first pains. She looked at
her face in the bit of a broken mirror that she had above her kitchen
dresser, and saw that she was pale. She went down to Adele: "Give me
your mistress's rouge," she said. And she put some on her cheeks. Then
she went up again, and, refusing to listen to the voice of her
suffering, finished cooking the dinner. It had to be served, and she
served it. At dessert, she leaned against the furniture and grasped the
backs of chairs as she passed the plates, hiding her torture with the
ghastly set smile of people whose entrails are writhing.

"How's this, are you sick?" said her mistress, looking sharply at her.

"Yes, mademoiselle, a little--it may be the charcoal or the hot
kitchen."

"Go to bed--we don't need you any more, and you can clean up to-morrow."

She went down to Adele once more.

"It's come," she said; "call a cab quick. It was Rue de la Huchette
where you said your midwife lives, wasn't it? opposite a copper
planer's? Haven't you a pen and paper?"

And she sat down to write a line to her mistress. She told her that she
was too ill to work, that she had gone to the hospital, but would not
tell her where, because she would fatigue herself coming to see her;
that she would come back within a week.

"There you are!" said Adele, all out of breath, giving her the number of
the cab.

"I can stay there," said Germinie; "not a word to mademoiselle. That's
all. Swear you won't say a word to her!"

She was descending the stairs when she met Jupillon.

"Hallo!" said he, "whe