Undersized, thin, sallow, and sunburned,--bareheaded, barefooted, dirty, and ragged,--she formed a striking contrast to the rosy-cheeked, plump, full-lipped, and well-dressed young woman within. The extraordinary sound of crunching very naturally attracted the first attention of the elder. "What in the world is that which you are eating, child?" she asked. "Bread, ma'm'selle." "Bread! Why, it's covered with dirt!" "Yes, ma'm'selle." Redoubled exertion of the sound young teeth. "Why do you eat that?" "Hungry, ma'm'selle." "Heavens!" Continuous crunching, while the child knocks the remaining crust against the wall to get the sand out of it, the dirt of the paving-stone. "What's your name?" "Fouchette." "Fouchette? Fouchette what?" "Nothing, ma'm'selle,--just Fouchette." "Where do you live, Fouchette? Do throw that dirty bread away, child!" "Say, now, ma'm'selle, do you see anything green in my eye?" The young woman seriously inspects the blue eye that is rolled up at her and shakes her head. "N-no; I don't see anything." "Very well," said Fouchette, continuing her attack on the slowly dissolving crust. "Throw it away, I tell you!--I'll run and get you some,--that's a good child!" Fouchette stopped suddenly and remained immobile, regarding her interlocutor sharply. "Truly?" she asked. "Certainly." The child looked at what remained of the crust, hesitated, sighed, then dropped it on the ground. The young woman hastily re-entered the house and presently reappeared with a huge sandwich with meat on a liberal scale. "Oh, how good you are, ma'm'selle!" cried Fouchette. Her blue eyes sparkled with pleasure,--her young mouth watered as the sandwich was passed between the railing. "What is that,--why, there is blood on your neck, Fouchette!" The child felt her neck with her hand and brought it away. "So it is," said she, sinking her teeth into the sandwich. "Here,--come closer,--turn this way. It's running down now. How did you hurt yourself?" "Dame! It is nothing, ma'm'selle." "Nothing! You are just black and blue!" "Mostly black," said Fouchette. The world looked ever so much brighter. "You've been fighting," suggested the young woman, tentatively. "No, ma'm'selle." "Then somebody struck you." "Quite right, ma'm'selle." This was delivered with such an air of nonchalance that the young lady smiled. "You speak as if it were a common occurrence," she observed. "It is," said Fouchette, with a desperate swallow,--"Podvin." "Po-Podvin?" "Yes, ma'm'selle." "Person you live with?" Fouchette nodded,--she had her mouth full. "They beat you?" "Most every day." "Why?" "Er--exercise, mostly, I think." The half-sly, half-humorous squint of the left blue eye set the sympathetic young woman laughing in spite of herself. The remarkable precocity of these petites misérables of the slums was new to her. "But you had father and mother----" "I don't know, ma'm'selle,--at least they never showed up."