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By Root 771 0

was bitterly cold, the cold gave Chantefleurie such a fine color that the men called her Paquette,—some called her Pâquerette,ce—and she went to the bad.—Eustache! don’t you let me see you nibble that cake!—We soon saw that she was ruined, when she came to church one fine Sunday with a gold cross on her neck. At fourteen years of age! Think of that! First it was the young Vicomte de Cormontreuil, whose castle is about three quarters of a league away from Rheims; then M. Henri de Triancourt, the king’s equerry; then something lower, Chiart de Beaulin, sergeant-at-arms; then, still lower, Guery Aubergeon, the king’s carver; then, Mace de Frépus, the dauphin’s barber; then, Thévenin-le-Moine, the king’s cook; then, still descending to older and meaner men, she fell into the hands of Guillaume Racine, viol-player, and of Thierry-de-Mer, the lantern-maker. Then—poor Chantefleurie!—she became common property; she had come to the last copper of her gold piece. How shall I tell you, ladies? At the time of the coronation, in that same year ‘61, it was she who made the king of ribalds’ bed,—that self-same year!”

Mahiette sighed, and wiped a tear from her cheek.

“No very uncommon story,” said Gervaise; “and I don’t see that it has anything to do with gipsies, or with children.”

“Patience!” replied Mahiette: “we shall soon come to the child. In ‘66, sixteen years ago this very month, on Saint Paula’s Day, Paquette gave birth to a little girl. Poor thing! Great was her joy; she had long wished for a child. Her mother, good woman, who never knew how to do anything but shut her eyes to her daughter’s faults,—her mother was dead. Paquette had no one left to love, no one to love her. Five years had passed since her fall, and Chantefleurie was but a miserable creature. She was alone, alone in the world, pointed at, hooted after in the street, beaten by the police, mocked by little ragged boys. And then, she was now twenty years old; and twenty is old age to such women. Vice had ceased to bring her in much more than her fringe-making used to do; every fresh wrinkle took away another coin. Winter was once more a hard season for her; wood was again scarce upon her hearth, and bread in her cupboard. She could no longer work; for when she took to a life of pleasure she learned to be lazy, and she suffered far more than before, because in learning to be lazy she became accustomed to pleasure,—at least, that’s the way the priest of Saint-Remy explains it to us that such women feel cold and hunger more than other poor folks do when they are old.”

“Yes,” remarked Gervaise; “but the gipsies?”

“One moment, Gervaise!” said Oudarde, whose attention was less impatient. “What would there be left for the end, if everything came at the beginning? Go on, Mahiette, please. Poor Chantefleurie!”

Mahiette continued:—

“So she was very wretched, very unhappy, and her tears wore deep furrows in her cheeks. But in her shame, her disgrace, and her misery, it seemed to her that she should feel less ashamed, less disgraced, and less miserable, if she had something to love or some one to love her. It must be a child; for only a child could be innocent enough for that. She recognized this after trying to love a thief,—the only man who would have anything to say to her; but after a little she saw that even the thief despised her. Women of that sort must have a lover or a child to fill up their hearts, otherwise they are very unhappy. As she could not have a lover, she gave herself up to longing for a child; and as she had never given over being pious, she prayed night and day that the good God would give her one. The good God had pity on her, and gave her a little girl. I cannot describe to you her delight; she covered it with a perfect rain of tears, kisses, and caresses. She nursed her child herself, made swaddling-clothes for it of her own coverlet,—the only one she had on her bed,—and no longer felt cold or hungry. She grew handsome again. An old maid makes a young mother.9 She took to her former trade; her old friends came back to see her, and she readily found