servant
hastened to the door to rid herself of Gaston and Lucie, who were
approaching. "Be off! I don't want you here. Your mamma has told you
that you mustn't come here."

Then she came back into the room quite furious. "That's true!" said she;
"I can do nothing but they must come to bother me. Why don't they stay a
little with the nurse?"

"Oh! by the way," interrupted La Couteau, "did you hear that Marie
Lebleu's little one is dead? She must have had a letter about it. Such
a fine child it was! But what can one expect? it's a nasty wind
passing. And then you know the saying, 'A nurse's child is the child of
sacrifice!'"

"Yes, she told me she had heard of it," replied Celeste, "but she begged
me not to mention it to madame, as such things always have a bad effect.
The worst is that if her child's dead madame's little one isn't much
better off."

At this La Couteau pricked up her ears. "Ah! so things are not
satisfactory?"

"No, indeed. It isn't on account of her milk; that's good enough, and
she has plenty of it. Only you never saw such a creature--such a temper!
always brutal and insolent, banging the doors and talking of smashing
everything at the slightest word. And besides, she drinks like a pig--as
no woman ought to drink."

La Couteau's pale eyes sparkled with gayety, and she briskly nodded her
head as if to say that she knew all this and had been expecting it. In
that part of Normandy, in and around Rougemont, all the women drank more
or less, and the girls even carried little bottles of brandy to school
with them in their baskets. Marie Lebleu, however, was a woman of the
kind that one picks up under the table, and, indeed, it might be said
that since the birth of her last child she had never been quite sober.

"I know her, my dear," exclaimed La Couteau; "she is impossible. But
then, that doctor who chose her didn't ask my opinion. And, besides, it
isn't a matter that concerns me. I simply bring her to Paris and take
her child back to the country. I know nothing about anything else. Let
the gentlefolks get out of their trouble by themselves."

This sentiment tickled Celeste, who burst out laughing. "You haven't an
idea," said she, "of the infernal life that Marie leads here! She fights
people, she threw a water-bottle at the coachman, she broke a big vase
in madame's apartments, she makes them all tremble with constant dread
that something awful may happen. And, then, if you knew what tricks she
p