On hearing this, the girl fixed her glistening eyes on the glass, which Pauline filled, and overcame her repugnance against the meat. Then she seized the glass and tossed its contents down her throat with all a drunkard's knowing readiness. But she did not then retire; she begged Pauline to let her take the bottle away with her, saying that it interfered too much with what she had to do to come up to the house every day; and she promised to take the bottle to bed with her, and to keep it so securely hidden that her father and mother would never be able to find it and drink the wine. Pauline, however, refused to let her have it. 'You'd swallow every drop of it before you got to the bottom of the hill,' said Lazare. 'It's yourself that we suspect now, you little wine-cask!' One by one the children left the bench to receive money, or bread, or meat. Some of them, after receiving their share of the distribution, seemed inclined to linger before the blazing fire, but Véronique, who had just noticed that half her carrots had been devoured, drove them off pitilessly into the rain. 'Had anyone ever seen anything like it before?' she cried. 'Carrots, too, that still had all the earth sticking to them!' Soon there was no one left but young Cuche, who looked very depressed in the expectation of receiving a severe lecture from Pauline. She called him to her, spoke to him for a long time in low tones, and finished by giving him his loaf and the hundred sous which he received from her every Saturday. Then he went off, with his clumsy swaying, having duly promised to work, but having no intention whatever of doing anything of the kind. The servant was just giving a sigh of relief when she suddenly exclaimed: 'Hallo! they haven't all gone yet, then! There's one of them over there in the corner still!' It was the Tourmals' little girl, the little abortion of the high roads, who, notwithstanding her ten years, was still quite a dwarf. It was only in shamelessness and effrontery that she seemed to grow, and she groaned more miserably and seemed more wretched than ever, trained for the profession of begging from her cradle, just as some infants have their bones manipulated in order that they may become acrobats. She crouched between the dresser and the fireplace, as though she had stowed herself in that corner for fear of being surprised in some wrong-doing. 'What are you up to there?' Pauline asked her. 'I am warming myself.' Véronique cast an anxious glance round her kitchen. On previous Saturdays, even when the children had assembled on the terrace, various little articles had disappeared. That day, however, everything seemed in its place, and the little girl, who had hurriedly risen to her feet, began to deafen them with her shrill voice: 'Father is in the hospital, and grandfather has hurt himself at his work, and mother hasn't a gown to go out in. Please have pity upon us, kind young lady---'