“We shan’t easily find such soft mattresses and such good food, eh, Victoire?” she asked.  Whereupon Mathieu perceived that another girl was present, a pale little creature with wavy red hair, tip-tilted nose, and long mouth, whom he had already seen there on the occasion of a previous visit.  She slept in one of the two other beds which the room contained, and now sat beside it mending some linen.  She was to leave the house on the morrow, having already sent her child to the Foundling Hospital; and in the meantime she was mending some things for Rosine, the well-to-do young person of great beauty whom Mathieu had previously espied, and whose story, according to Norine, was so sadly pathetic.

Victoire ceased sewing and raised her head.  She was a servant girl by calling, one of those unlucky creatures who are overtaken by trouble when they have scarce arrived in the great city from their native village.  “Well,” said she, “it’s quite certain that one won’t be able to dawdle in bed, and that one won’t have warm milk given one to drink before getting up.  But, all the same, it isn’t lively to see nothing but that big gray wall yonder from the window.  And, besides, one can’t go on forever doing nothing.”

Norine laughed and jerked her head, as if she were not of this opinion.  Then, as her little sisters embarrassed her, she wished to get rid of them.

“And so, my pussies,” said she, “you say that papa’s still angry with me, and that I’m not to go back home.”

“Oh!” cried Cecile, “it’s not so much that he’s angry, but he says that all the neighbors would point their fingers at him if he let you come home.  Besides, Euphrasie keeps his anger up, particularly since she’s arranged to get married.”

“What!  Euphrasie going to be married?  You didn’t tell me that.”

Norine looked very vexed, particularly when her sisters, speaking both together, told her that the future husband was Auguste Benard, a jovial young mason who lived on the floor above them.  He had taken a fancy to Euphrasie, though she had no good looks, and was as thin, at eighteen, as a grasshopper.  Doubtless, however, he considered her strong and hard-working.

“Much good may it do them!” said Norine spitefully.  “Why, with her evil temper, she’ll be beating him before six months are over.  You can just tell mamma that I don’t care a rap for any of you, and that I need nobody.  I’ll go and look for work, and I’ll find somebody to help me.  So, you hear, don’t you come back here.  I don’t want to be bothered by you any more.”

At this, Irma, but eight years old and tender-hearted, began to cry.  “Why do you scold us?  We didn’t come to worry you.  I wanted to ask you, too, if that baby’s yours, and if we may kiss it before we go away.”

Norine immediately regretted her spiteful outburst.  She once more called the girls her “little pussies,” kissed them tenderly, and told them that although they must run away now they might come back another day to see her if it amused them.  “Thank mamma from me for her oranges.  And as for the baby, well, you may look at it, but you mustn’t touch it, for if it woke up we shouldn’t be able to hear ourselves.”