If one would know it well, it must be seen especially in the working quarters of the town, in those gloomy streets which it lights up and enlarges by closing the shops, keeping in their sheds the heavy drays and trucks, leaving the space free for wandering bands of children washed and in their Sunday clothes, and for games of battledore and shuttlecock played amid the great circlings of the swallows beneath some porch of old Paris. It must be seen in the densely populated, feverishly toiling suburbs, where, as soon as morning is come, you may feel it hovering, resposeful and sweet, in the silence of the factories, passing with the ringing of church-bells and that sharp whistle of the railways, and filling the horizon, all around the outskirts of the city, with an immense song, as it were, of departure and of deliverance. Then one understands it and loves it. O Sunday of Paris, Sunday of the toilers and the humble, often have I cursed thee without reason, I have poured whole streams of abusive ink over thy noisy and extravagant joys, over the dust of railway stations filled by thy uproar and the maddening omnibuses that thou takest by assault, over thy tavern songs bawled everywhere from carts adorned with green and pink dresses, on thy barrel-organs grinding out their tunes beneath the balconies of deserted court-yards; but to-day, abjuring my errors, I exalt thee, and I bless thee for all the joy and relief thou givest to courageous and honest labour, for the laughter of the children who greet thee with acclamation, the pride of mothers happy to dress their little ones in their best clothes in thy honour, for the dignity thou dost preserve in the homes of the poorest, the glorious raiment set aside for thee at the bottom of the old shaky chest of drawers; I bless thee especially by reason of all the happiness thou hast brought that morning to the great new house in the old faubourg. Toilettes having been completed, the _dejeuner_ finished, taken on the thumb, as they say--and you can imagine what quantity these young ladies’ thumbs would carry--they came to put on their hats before the mirror in the drawing-room. Bonne Maman threw around her supervising glance, inserted a pin here, retied a ribbon there, straightened her father’s cravat; but while all this little world was stamping with impatience, beckoned out of doors by the beauty of the day, there came a ring at the bell, echoing through the apartment and disturbing their gay proceedings. “Suppose we don’t open the door?” propose the children. And what a relief, with a cry of delight, they see their friend Paul come in! “Quick! quick! Come and let us tell you the good news.”