“She is quite well in other respects, Monsieur,” continued the daughter, turning impatiently from her; “she still eats like a peasant, she sleeps soundly, she prefers bright colours for her dress to go to mass and confession. As for that, she is so superstitious, that when we were about to starve, she would not permit her little cross there to be pledged, nor the dress in which she must frequent Notre Dame—it was not she who suffered, you see, but we—who endeavoured to conceal it from her that we endured so much!” A look of mild reproach was cast by Suzanne towards her daughter, while her lips still moved. “Well, well, Jeannette, going to these affairs pleases her,” said the young boot-closer, with the cub-like leaning to his mother-in-law which appeared through his uncouth exterior. “It is the priests who frighten her,” went on his partner, her back towards him, in perfect indifference to his remarks; “her confessor, who makes her tremble at the supposition of crimes”— “Of which she is innocent!” observed the son-in-law behind, in the same disregarded way—“_sacré nom!_ Jeannette is wrong about my mother-in-law,” he added, looking awkwardly for a moment at Sir Godfrey. “If you would not call her Madame Deroux—it confuses her ideas—it is Madame Peltier she likes strangers to call her—do you not, Marraine?” An air of childish pleasure spread over the old woman’s features, and she nodded graciously, and smiled. “See how she loves the child, too, Jeannette!” said he, as the infant stretched its shapeless arms and legs from the maternal bosom, where it had at length ceased to feed, towards the grandmother’s bright kerchief and white coif, that basked in outer sunshine. She put out her hands to receive it, and, with an aspect of complete satisfaction, began dandling the child towards the window, chirping to it like a bird, or buzzing like a bee; while the slatternly Jeannette applied a careless touch to the disorder of her dress. “Peltier is the name of Jeannette’s father, it seems,” resumed the bootmaker more confidentially than before, coming nearer the visitor; “though for that—I and Jeannette do not mind such ceremony—do we, Jeannette? We are fond of each other, you see.” The disdainful glance which he received from his female companion was sufficiently sharp-tempered to make the fondness on her side doubtful. “Do you not see that you infest Monsieur with your absurd remarks!” said she, angrily, when the pin had been taken from her mouth, on which her attire greatly depended; “and he must naturally wish to escape from a habitation so unworthy of him—favour me by being silent, or going out.” The bootmaker retreated towards his original place again, while his abler partner, with an intelligence and quickness of apprehension, as well as a collectedness, which might have done credit to a higher station, proceeded to take up the thread of their visitor’s business with them.