"Come now, Mamma Lacombe; to quiet your honest scruples, we shall say sixty francs per month for your pin money, and throw a superb shawl into the bargain. This will enable you to appear to advantage beside Mariette, whom you must watch with motherly solicitude, and never allow out of your sight, for I am jealous as a tiger, and don't like to be deceived." "Only this very morning," put in the sick woman, "I was saying to Mariette, 'You are a respectable girl, and barely earn twenty sous per day sewing on chemises worth three hundred francs apiece, for a kept woman.'" "Chemises worth three hundred francs apiece, ordered from Madame Jourdan? Let me see--ah! yes, I know. They must be for Amandine, the mistress of the Marquis de Saint-Herem, my most intimate friend--I recommended the establishment--a veritable fortune for Madame Jourdan, although that devil of a marquis seldom pays. But, on the other hand, all the furnishers and women he patronizes become the rage. Amandine was but an obscure little shop-girl six months ago, and now she is the most fashionable woman in Paris. And Mariette may have the same luck, you know. Fancy her wearing chemises worth three hundred francs apiece, instead of sewing them! Doesn't it make you feel like bursting with pride, Mamma Lacombe?" "Unless Mariette ended like a girl of my acquaintance, who also sold herself through misery." "What happened her?" "She was robbed." "Robbed?" "She was promised mountains of gold, too; but at the end of three months she was deserted and left without a single sou. Then she killed herself in despair." "The devil! what do you take me for?" cried the visitor, haughtily. "Do I look like a swindler; a _Robert Macaire_?" "I don't know what you are." "I, an old soldier! twenty campaigns and ten times wounded! The intimate companion and friend of all the _lions_ of Paris! a man with his own carriage and who spends twenty thousand francs per annum! The devil! be frank with me! Do you require securities or advances? Very well, then; the house shall be furnished within a week and the lease signed in your own name to-morrow, with the payment of a whole year in advance; besides, if we come to terms, here are twenty-five to thirty louis to bind the bargain." Drawing twenty-eight gold pieces from his pocket, he tossed them on the work-table beside the bed, saying: "I am not like you, Mamma Lacombe; I am not afraid of being robbed." At the clinking of gold, the sick woman leaned out of her bed and cast a glance of covetousness at the glittering pieces. In all the course of her miserable existence, she had never possessed a single gold piece, and the sight of the scattered louis before her eyes almost dazzled her. Grasping a few in her withered fingers, she held them up to the light, trying to catch the sun's rays that she might feast her hungry eyes on their sparkling beauty.