"A grisette's lodging is a curious place; but she hasn't always a lodging to herself; very often she simply perches here and there. She will stay a week with her lover, three weeks with a friend of her own sex, and the rest of the time with her fruiterer or her concierge. When, by any chance, she does possess a domicile and furniture of her own, the grisette's bosom swells with pride, even when the furniture in question consists of nothing more than a cot, a mirror, and one broken chair. She takes delight in saying: 'I shall stay _at home_ this evening,' or: 'I don't expect to leave _home_ to-morrow. I have an idea of doing _my room_ over in color; it's all the style now, especially yellow; when it's well rubbed, it makes more effect than furniture.' "It is she who writes on her door, with a piece of Spanish chalk, when she goes out: _I am at my nabor's, down one flite._ "But the grisette is not obliged to know the rules of orthography; and if she spoke the purest French, her conversation would probably seem less amusing; there are so many people who attract by their bad qualities. "Sometimes the grisette ventures to give an evening party. When she is in the mood, she will invite as many as seven people. On such occasions, the bed does duty as a divan, the blinds as benches, the cooking stove as a table, and the lamp from the staircase is placed on the mantel to take the place of a chandelier. Punch is brewed in a soup tureen, and tea in a saucepan; they drink from egg cups, there is one spoon for three persons, and the hostess's shawl serves as a table cloth and as a napkin for all the company; all of which does not prevent the guests from laughing and enjoying themselves; for the most genuine enjoyment is not that which costs the most. This is not a new maxim, but it is very consoling to those who are not favored by fortune." As he said this, Dumouton glanced down at himself, with a profound sigh. But encouraged, I doubt not, by a glimpse of the ends of his cravat, by that profusion of linen, to which he was not accustomed, he speedily resumed his smiling expression and continued his discourse. "I come now, messieurs, to the last division of my trilogy, the _lorettes_, who are grisettes of the front rank--the _tip-toppers_! By that I mean that they are sought by the fashionable lions, the dandies, the Jockey Club--in a word, by those gentry who have a liking for spending money freely with women, and who have the means to do it.