linen, and
even money--for apart from official matters, charitable people often
intrusted her with fairly large sums, which she distributed among the
most meritorious of the poor mothers whom she visited. And even nowadays
she occasionally called on the sisters, well pleased to spend an hour
in that nook of quiet toil, which the laughter and the play of the child
enlivened. She there felt herself to be far away from the world, and
suffered less from her own misfortunes. And Norine kissed her hands,
declaring that without her the little household of the two mothers would
never have managed to exist.

When Mathieu appeared there, cries of delight arose. He also was a
friend, a saviour--the one who, by first taking and furnishing the
large room, had founded the household. It was a very clean room, almost
coquettish with its white curtains, and rendered very cheerful by its
two large windows, which admitted the golden radiance of the afternoon
sun. Norine and Cecile were working at the table, cutting out cardboard
and pasting it together, while the little one, who had come home from
school, sat between them on a high chair, gravely handling a pair of
scissors and fully persuaded that he was helping them.

"Oh! is it you? How kind of you to come to see us! Nobody has called
for five days past. Oh! we don't complain of it. We are so happy alone
together! Since Irma married a clerk she has treated us with disdain.
Euphrasie can no longer come down her stairs. Victor and his wife live
so far away. And as for that rascal Alfred, he only comes up here to see
if he can find something to steal. Mamma called five days ago to tell us
that papa had narrowly escaped being killed at the works on the previous
day. Poor mamma! she is so worn out that before long she won't be able
to take a step."

While the sisters thus rattled on both together, one beginning a
sentence and the other finishing it, Mathieu looked at Norine,
who, thanks to that peaceful and regular life, had regained in her
thirty-sixth year a freshness of complexion that suggested a superb,
mature fruit gilded by the sun. And even the slender Cecile had acquired
strength, the strength which love's energy can impart even to a childish
form.

All at once, however, she raised a loud exclamation of horror: "Oh! he
has hurt himself, the poor little fellow." And at once she snatched the
scissors from the child, who sat there laughing with a drop of blood at
the tip of one o