"I admit that their conduct is wrong, nay wicked; but then, you know, my dear Goualeuse, because you and I have been so fortunate as to preserve ourselves from harm,--you, because you have been living with good and virtuous people in the country, out of the reach of temptation; and I, because I had no time to waste in listening to a set of make-believe lovers; and also because I found greater pleasure in having a few birds, and in trying to get things a little comfortable and snug around me,--I say, it is not for you and me to be too severe with others; and God alone knows whether opportunity, deceit, and destitution may not have had much to do in causing the misery and disgrace of Julie and Rosine! And who can say whether, in their place, we might not have acted as they have done?" "Alas!" cried Fleur-de-Marie, "I accuse them not; on the contrary, I pity them from my heart!" "Come, come, my dear child!" interrupted Madame Seraphin, impatiently offering her arm to her victim, "you forget that I said we were already behind our time." "Pray, madame, grant us a little more time," said Rigolette. "It is so very long since I saw my dear Goualeuse!" "I should be glad to do so," replied Madame Seraphin, much annoyed at this meeting between the two friends; "but it is now three o'clock, and we have a long way to go. However, I will manage to allow you ten minutes longer gossip. So pray make the best of your time." "And tell me, I pray, of yourself," said Fleur-de-Marie, affectionately pressing the hands of Rigolette between her own. "Are you still the same merry, light-hearted, and happy creature I always knew you?" "I was happy and gay enough a few days ago; but now--" "You sorrowful? I can hardly believe it." "Ah, but indeed I am! Not that I am at all changed from what you always found me,--a regular Roger Bontemps,--one to whom nothing was a trouble. But then, you see, everybody is not like me; so that, when I see those I love unhappy, why, naturally, that makes me unhappy, too." "Still the same kind, warm-hearted girl!" "Why, who could help being grieved as I am? Just imagine my having come hither to visit a poor young creature,--a sort of neighbouring lodger in the house where I live,--as meek and mild as a lamb she was, poor thing! Well, she has been most shamefully and unjustly accused,--that she has; never mind of what just now! Her name is Louise Morel. She is the daughter of an honest and deserving man, a lapidary, who has gone mad in consequence of her being put in prison." At the name of Louise Morel, one of the victims of the notary's villainy, Madame Seraphin started, and gazed earnestly at Rigolette. The features of the grisette were, however, perfectly unknown to her; nevertheless, from that instant, the _femme de charge_ listened with an attentive ear to the conversation of the two girls. "Poor thing," continued the Goualeuse; "how happy it must make her to find that you have not forgotten her in her misfortunes!"