uld have cared to have him at her
place."

Meantime Norine's little boy had taken his stand in front of Madame
Angelin, for he knew very well that, on the days when the good lady
called, there was some dessert at supper in the evening. He smiled at
her with the bright eyes which lit up his pretty fair face, crowned with
tumbled sunshiny hair. And when she noticed with what a merry glance he
was waiting for her to open her little bag, she felt quite moved.

"Come and kiss me, my little friend," said she.

She knew no sweeter reward for all that she did than the kisses of the
children in the poor homes whither she brought a little joy. When the
youngster had boldly thrown his arms round her neck, her eyes filled
with tears; and, addressing herself to his mother, she repeated: "No,
no, you must not complain; there are others who are more unhappy than
you. I know one who if this pretty little fellow could only be her
own would willingly accept your poverty, and paste boxes together from
morning till night and lead a recluse's life in this one room, which
he suffices to fill with sunshine. Ah! good Heavens, if you were only
willing, if we could only change."

For a moment she became silent, afraid that she might burst into sobs.
The wound dealt her by her childlessness had always remained open. She
and her husband were now growing old in bitter solitude in three little
rooms overlooking a courtyard in the Rue de Lille. In this retirement
they subsisted on the salary which she, the wife, received as a
lady-delegate, joined to what they had been able to save of their
original fortune. The former fan-painter of triumphant mien was now
completely blind, a mere thing, a poor suffering thing, whom his wife
seated every morning in an armchair where she still found him in the
evening when she returned home from her incessant peregrinations through
the frightful misery of guilty mothers and martyred children. He could
no longer eat, he could no longer go to bed without her help, he had
only her left him, he was her child as he would say at times with a
despairing irony which made them both weep.

A child? Ah, yes! she had ended by having one, and it was he! An old
child, born of disaster; one who appeared to be eighty though he was
less than fifty years old, and who amid his black and ceaseless night
ever dreamt of sunshine during the long hours which he was compelled to
spend alone. And Madame Angelin did not only envy that poo