hall die.
It's settled in a very easy fashion: the parents give a sum of three or
four hundred francs on condition that the little one shall be kept till
his first communion, and you may be quite certain that he dies within
a week. It's only necessary to leave a window open near him, as a nurse
used to do whom my father knew. At winter time, when she had half a
dozen babies in her house, she would set the door wide open and then
go out for a stroll. And, by the way, that little boy in the next room,
whom La Couteau has just gone to see, she'll take him to La Couillard's,
I'm sure; for I heard the mother, Mademoiselle Rosine, agree with her
the other day to give her a sum of four hundred francs down on the
understanding that she should have nothing more to do in the matter."

At this point Victoire ceased speaking, for La Couteau came in to fetch
Norine's child. Norine, who had emerged from her distress during the
servant girl's stories, had ended by listening to them with great
interest. But directly she perceived the agent she once more hid her
face in her pillows, as though she feared to see what was about to
happen. Mathieu, on his side, had risen from his chair and stood there
quivering.

"So it's understood, I'm going to take the child," said La Couteau.
"Madame Bourdieu has given me a slip of paper bearing the date of the
birth and the address. Only I ought to have some Christian names. What
do you wish the child to be called?"

Norine did not at first answer. Then, in a faint distressful voice, she
said: "Alexandre."

"Alexandre, very well. But you would do better to give the boy a second
Christian name, so as to identify him the more readily, if some day you
take it into your head to run after him."

It was again necessary to tear a reply from Norine. "Honore," she said.

"Alexandre Honore--all right. That last name is yours, is it not?* And
the first is the father's? That is settled; and now I've everything I
need. Only it's four o'clock already, and I shall never get back in time
for the six o'clock train if I don't take a cab. It's such a long way
off--the other side of the Luxembourg. And a cab costs money. How shall
we manage?"

* Norine is, of course, a diminutive of Honorine, which is the
feminine form of Honore.--Trans.

While she continued whining, to see if she could not extract a few
francs from the distressed girl, it suddenly occurred to Mathieu to
carry out his mission to the very e