hey "would give her about
seventeen."

Mother and daughter were very fond. The neighbors could hear them call
each other pet names, and see them sitting together, sewing, talking
happily to each other in the unceasing French way, and see them go out
and come in together on their little tasks and errands. "'Tite
Poulette," the daughter was called; she never went out alone.

And who was this Madame John?

"Why, you know!--she was"--said the wig-maker at the corner to Kristian
Koppig--"I'll tell you. You know?--she was"--and the rest atomized off
in a rasping whisper. She was the best yellow-fever nurse in a thousand
yards round; but that is not what the wig-maker said.

A block nearer the river stands a house altogether different from the
remnant of old barracks. It is of frame, with a deep front gallery over
which the roof extends. It has become a den of Italians, who sell fuel
by daylight, and by night are up to no telling what extent of deviltry.
This was once the home of a gay gentleman, whose first name happened to
be John. He was a member of the Good Children Social Club. As his
parents lived with him, his wife would, according to custom, have been
called Madame John but he had no wife. His father died, then his mother;
last of all, himself. As he is about to be off, in comes Madame John,
with 'Tite Poulette, then an infant, on her arm.

"Zalli," said he, "I am going."

She bowed her head, and wept.

"You have been very faithful to me, Zalli."

She wept on.

"Nobody to take care of you now, Zalli."

Zalli only went on weeping.

"I want to give you this house, Zalli; it is for you and the little
one."

An hour after, amid the sobs of Madame John, she and the "little one"
inherited the house, such as it was. With the fatal caution which
characterizes ignorance, she sold the property and placed the proceeds
in a bank, which made haste to fail. She put on widow's weeds, and wore
them still when 'Tite Poulette "had seventeen," as the frantic lads
would say.

How they did chatter over her. Quiet Kristian Koppig had never seen the
like. He wrote to his mother, and told her so. A pretty fellow at the
corner would suddenly double himself up with beckoning to a knot of
chums; these would hasten up; recruits would come in from two or three
other directions; as they reached the corner their countenances would
quickly assume a genteel severity, and presently, with her mother, 'Tite
Poulette would pass--tall, st