As I am nothing of a greybeard, I am only able to write of Mademoiselle Marie Rosalie Losset and of the _pension de famille_ in the Rue des Poitevins at second hand. It was as far back as 1838 that Mademoiselle Marie, then a _jeune fille_ of eighteen, came up to Paris from tranquil, beautiful Savoy to help her sister and brother-in-law, M. and Madame Laveur, to conduct their new boarding-house. Tall, graceful, masses of golden hair—the “Greek Statue,” the great Gambetta called her, and the name clung. I must be excused from stating names and events in chronological order—so much has happened since the year 1840! But I can give the precise terms of the _pension_: five or six francs a day for full board, including white or red wine. Also I am able to record that whereas the sister and brother-in-law, M. and Madame Laveur, were suspicious, severe and close-fisted, Mademoiselle Marie Rosalie Losset—“Mademoiselle Marie” for short—was all gaiety and generosity, and sympathised with the struggles, disappointments and financial ennuis of the boarders. Fortunately for the latter it was Mademoiselle Marie who made up the bills and had charge of the cash-box; the Laveurs occupied themselves exclusively with the kitchen and the household arrangements. Inevitably, the student boarders lost their hearts to the “Greek Statue”; but she laughed at their gallantry, and gaily wanted to know how on earth they could keep a wife when they couldn’t pay their own way. Bill of M. Paul a month and thirteen days overdue. Laundry account of M. Pierre five weeks in arrears, and the washerwoman making persistent “inquiries.” The washing-basin of M. Jacques, broken an eternity ago, still standing against him in the boarding-house ledger. And yet they wanted to marry her, all of them—the foolish sentimentalists, the dear, simple imbeciles! No, no; she would try to keep the Laveurs in ignorance of the unpaid bills; she would sew buttons on to M. Paul’s shabby coat, and blot out the stains from M. Pierre’s; she would say no more of the washing-basin; she would reassure the angry _blanchisseuse_; she would, in a word, do everything for the student boarders except marry them. “Tant pis,” cried the latter dramatically, “you have broken my heart. I shall never do anything in this world. You have ruined me!” Replied the radiant Savoyarde: “Nonsense! Work hard, and make a name for yourself. And when you are famous come and see me, and I promise not to remind you of the washerwoman, or the basin, or your faded old coat.”