t was barely two
o'clock in the afternoon, and she was just beginning her round. On her
lap lay her little bag, bulging out with the gold and the silver which
she had to distribute. Old Moineaud was there, installed on a chair
and smoking his pipe, in front of her. And she felt concerned about
his needs, and explained that she would have greatly liked to obtain a
monthly relief allowance for him.

"But if you only knew," she added, "what suffering there is among the
poor during these winter months. We are quite swamped, we cannot give to
everybody, there are too many. And after all you are among the fortunate
ones. I find some lying like dogs on the tiled floors of their rooms,
without a scrap of coal to make a fire or even a potato to eat. And
the poor children, too, good Heavens! Children in heaps among vermin,
without shoes, without clothes, all growing up as if destined for prison
or the scaffold, unless consumption should carry them off."

Madame Angelin quivered and closed her eyes as if to escape
the spectacle of all the terrifying things that she evoked, the
wretchedness, the shame, the crimes that she elbowed during her
continual perambulations through that hell of poverty, vice, and hunger.
She often returned home pale and silent, having reached the uttermost
depths of human abomination, and never daring to say all. At times
she trembled and raised her eyes to Heaven, wondering what vengeful
cataclysm would swallow up that accursed city of Paris.

"Ah!" she murmured once more; "their sufferings are so great, may their
sins be forgiven them."

Moineaud listened to her in a state of stupor, as if he were unable to
understand. At last with difficulty he succeeded in taking his pipe
from his mouth. It was, indeed, quite an effort now for him to do such
a thing, and yet for fifty years he had wrestled with iron--iron in the
vice or on the anvil.

"There is nothing like good conduct," he stammered huskily. "When a man
works he's rewarded."

Then he wished to set his pipe between his lips once more, but was
unable to do so. His hand, deformed by the constant use of tools,
trembled too violently. So it became necessary for Norine to rise from
her chair and help him.

"Poor father!" exclaimed Cecile, who had not ceased working, cutting out
the cardboard for the little boxes she made: "What would have become
of him if we had not given him shelter? It isn't Irma, with her stylish
hats and her silk dresses who wo