“Oh! oh! her brothers!” said Clara in a bantering tone. Madame Aurélie was obliged to interfere. “Be quiet! young ladies. You had better go on changing those tickets. Mademoiselle Baudu is quite free to misbehave herself out of doors, if only she worked a bit when here.” This curt defence was a condemnation. The young girl, feeling choked as if they had accused her of a crime, vainly endeavoured to explain the facts. They laughed and shrugged their shoulders, and she felt wounded to the heart On hearing the rumour, Deloche was so indignant that he wanted to slap the faces of the young ladies in Denise's department; and was only restrained by the fear of compromising her. Since the evening at Joinville, he entertained a submissive love, an almost religious friendship for her, which he proved by his faithful doglike looks. He was careful not to show his affection before the others, for they would have laughed at them; but that did not prevent his dreaming of the avenging blow, if ever any one should attack her before him. Denise finished by not answering the insults. It was too odious, nobody would believe it. When any girl ventured a fresh allusion, she contented herself with looking at her with a sad, calm air. Besides, she had other troubles, material anxieties which took up her attention. Jean went on as bad as ever, always worrying her for money. Hardly a week passed that she did not receive some fresh story from him, four pages long; and when the house postman brought her these letters, in a big, passionate handwriting, she hastened to hide them in her pocket, for the saleswomen affected to laugh, and sung snatches of some doubtful ditties. Then after having invented a pretext to go to the other end of the establishment and read the letters, she was seized with fear; poor Jean seemed to be lost. All his fibs went down with her, she believed all his extraordinary love adventures, her complete ignorance of such things making her exaggerate the danger. Sometimes it was a two-franc piece to enable him to escape the jealousy of some woman; at other times five francs, six francs, to get some poor girl out of a scrape, whose father would otherwise kill her. So that as her salary and commission did not suffice, she had conceived the idea of looking for a little work after business hours. She spoke about it to Robineau, who had shown a certain sympathy for her since their meeting at Vinçard's, and he had procured her the making of some neckties at five sous a dozen. At night, between nine and one o'clock, she could do six dozen, which made thirty sous, out of which she had to deduct four sous for a candle. But as this sum kept Jean going she did not complain of the want of sleep, and would have thought herself very happy had not another catastrophe once more overthrown her budget calculations. At the end of the second fortnight, when she went to the necktie-dealer, she found the door closed; the