She got up early the next morning while Jean was yet asleep, and cheered herself as she looked at her scanty supply of poor coffee with the thought that she would be paid for her work in the course of the day. Meanwhile the breakfast would not be a very rich affair, and she was pondering whether she could be so extravagant as to run to a _cremerie_ near at hand for two _sous_-worth of milk, when an unexpected sound filled her with dismay. It was Perine's shuffling steps upon the stairs, and she was by no means sure how Jean would receive such an early visitor. Moreover, she did not care that he should be disturbed, and she went hastily to the door to moderate the noise of the girl's awkward entry. For a wonder no word or look of hers could do this. Perine, who generally was obedient to her smallest sign, was in a state of uncontrollable excitement; she fled to Marie's arms, buried her rough head there, sobbed her loudest, and presently, in the thick of incoherent lamentations, pulled down her dress, and showed a heavy bruise on her shoulder. Then she sobbed again, and implored Madame Didier not to let them beat her. "Come, come, come!" said Marie reassuringly, "tell me a little more about this, and don't be a baby, Perine. Remember that you are a big girl. No one will come here to beat you; if they did, good M. Plon would not let them come up the stairs. Tell me who did it?" She sat down on the stool as she spoke, and let the poor clumsy creature rest on her knee. "The man, the bad man!" howled Perine. "That I hear; but what were you doing to make any one so cruel?" "Perine only looking at pretty bright figures, mother; so pretty with the light on them. 7639." "What is she talking about?" said Madame Didier, puzzled, "7639?"