When Balloquet left me, I squeezed his hand so hard that I made him cry out. Really, he was a very good fellow, was Balloquet, and I was very fond of him! How in the devil could I ever have dreamed that Frédérique would listen to him? There was not the slightest bond of sympathy between them. Now that I was no longer tormented by that business, I remembered Mignonne and Madame Potrelle, and how coldly and absent-mindedly I had listened to what that good woman told me. Mignonne's child was ill, and the poor mother was in need of a thousand things to nurse her properly! Suppose I should go to see her, to encourage her? She would receive me ill, perhaps; but, no matter! I no longer felt in the mood to take offence. I started for Rue Ménilmontant. Madame Potrelle uttered a cry of surprise when she saw me; then she said: "Mon Dieu! monsieur, have you come to take back the work that young woman needs so much?" "No, no, far from it! But this morning I was--preoccupied, and I paid little attention to what you told me." "That's so; monsieur wasn't like what he usually is; but, _dame!_ everyone has his own troubles." "I would like to see Mignonne, Madame Potrelle, and see for myself what her child's condition is. Do you think she will receive me?" "Oh! yes, monsieur. She receives anybody now, if they say they know anything about children's health." I ran quickly up the five flights. I stopped to take breath before mounting the last narrow, dark staircase. When I reached the top, I heard a sweet, melancholy voice singing: "'Veille, veille, pauvre Marie, Pour secourir le prisonnier.'" Mignonne's door was thrown wide open, for it was summer, and in that way she admitted a little air and light to her chamber, which, as we know, had no window but the round hole in the ceiling. I stepped forward; Mignonne's back was turned toward the door; she was on her knees beside a cradle placed on two chairs. The cradle was covered with a pretty piece of flowered chintz; a flounce of the same material about the base concealed the little straw mattress on which children usually lie. It had almost a luxurious look, in striking contrast with the other contents of that poor chamber; but the most poverty-stricken mother always finds a way to adorn her child's cradle. At that moment, Mignonne was trying to put the child to sleep by singing to her and rocking her. I stopped in the doorway; she did not turn. She did not hear me; she had no eyes or ears for anything but her daughter. She was speaking to her: