"Oh, you little glutton!" "Ah! but then, remember, I include the food for both my birds in that sum." "Certainly it seems less exorbitant, when you come to reckon, for three than for one; but just tell me how you manage day by day, that I may profit by your good example." "Well, then, be attentive, and I will go over the different things I spend in it. First of all, one pound of bread, that costs four sous; then two sous' worth of milk make six; four sous' worth of vegetables in winter, or fruit and salad in summer,--I am very found of salad, because, like vegetables, it is such a nice clean thing to prepare, and does not soil the hands; there goes ten sous at once; then three sous for butter, or oil and vinegar, to season the salad with, that makes thirteen sous; a pail of nice fresh water,--oh, I must have that! it is my principal extravagance,--that brings it to fifteen sous, don't you see? Then add two or three sous a week for chickweed and seed for my birds, who generally have part of my bread and milk; all this comes to exactly twenty-three francs a month, neither more nor less." "And do you never eat meat?" "Meat, indeed! I should think not. Why, it costs from ten to twelve sous a pound! A likely thing for me to buy! Besides, there is all the nuisance and smell of cooking; instead of which, milk, vegetables, or fruit, are always ready when you wish for them. I tell you what is a favourite dish of mine, without being troublesome to prepare, and which I excel in making." "Oh, pray let me know what it is?" "Why, I get some beautiful ripe, rosy apples, and put them at the top of my little stove; when they are quite tender, I bruise them with a little milk, and just a taste of sugar. It is a dish for an emperor. If you behave well, I will let you taste it some day." "Prepared by your hands, it can scarcely fail being excellent; but let us keep to our reckoning. Let me see, we counted twenty-three francs for living, etc., and twelve francs for lodging; that makes thirty-five francs a month." "Well, then, out of the forty-five or fifty francs I earn, there remains from ten to fifteen francs a month for my wood and oil during the winter, as well as for my clothes and washing; that is to say, for soap and other requisites; because, excepting my sheets, I wash my own things; that is another of my extravagances,--a good laundress would pretty well ruin me; while, as I am a very quick and good ironer, the expense is principally that of my own time. During the five winter months I burn a load and a half of wood, while I consume about four or five sous' worth of oil for my lamp daily; that makes it cost me about eighty francs a year for fire and lights." "So that you have, in fact, scarcely one hundred francs to clothe yourself, and find you in pocket money." "No more; yet out of that sum I managed to save my three francs and a half." "But your gowns, your shoes,--this smart little cap?"