Since they had been living thus they had made but one good friend, and this was Madame Angelin. As a delegate of the Poor Relief Service, intrusted with one of the Grenelle districts, Madame Angelin had found Norine among the pensioners over whom she was appointed to watch. A feeling of affection for the two mothers, as she called the sisters, had sprung up within her, and she had succeeded in inducing the authorities to prolong the child's allowance of thirty francs a month for a period of three years. Then she had obtained scholastic assistance for him, not to mention frequent presents which she brought--clothes, linen, and even money--for apart from official matters, charitable people often intrusted her with fairly large sums, which she distributed among the most meritorious of the poor mothers whom she visited. And even nowadays she occasionally called on the sisters, well pleased to spend an hour in that nook of quiet toil, which the laughter and the play of the child enlivened. She there felt herself to be far away from the world, and suffered less from her own misfortunes. And Norine kissed her hands, declaring that without her the little household of the two mothers would never have managed to exist. When Mathieu appeared there, cries of delight arose. He also was a friend, a saviour--the one who, by first taking and furnishing the large room, had founded the household. It was a very clean room, almost coquettish with its white curtains, and rendered very cheerful by its two large windows, which admitted the golden radiance of the afternoon sun. Norine and Cécile were working at the table, cutting out cardboard and pasting it together, while the little one, who had come home from school, sat between them on a high chair, gravely handling a pair of scissors and fully persuaded that he was helping them. "Oh! is it you? How kind of you to come to see us! Nobody has called for five days past. Oh! we don't complain of it. We are so happy alone together! Since Irma married a clerk she has treated us with disdain. Euphrasie can no longer come down her stairs. Victor and his wife live so far away. And as for that rascal Alfred, he only comes up here to see if he can find something to steal. Mamma called five days ago to tell us that papa had narrowly escaped being killed at the works on the previous day. Poor mamma! she is so worn out that before long she won't be able to take a step." While the sisters thus rattled on both together, one beginning a sentence and the other finishing it, Mathieu looked at Norine, who, thanks to that peaceful and regular life, had regained in her thirty-sixth year a freshness of complexion that suggested a superb, mature fruit gilded by the sun. And even the slender Cécile had acquired strength, the strength which love's energy can impart even to a childish form.