Old Nannon came to Rue St Servan, and was duly acknowledged as the girl's attendant whenever she went out. She and Madame Roulleau had a preliminary skirmish, from which madame retired a little discomfited; for, with all her simplicity, Nannon had no lack of shrewdness. In spite of the spirit of contradiction which prompted it, Therese had not made a bad choice. There was a fresh vigorous heart beating in the old woman's bosom, an unconquerable fidelity, keen humour, clear wit; she liked any thing young and pretty, and felt a great compassion for this girl, who was not only young and pretty, but so friendless. Before a month was over she would have gone through fire and water to serve her. She served her better by the homely words she let drop. Every life has its pathos and its poetry, whether we acknowledge it or not; Nannon, with her hard fare and her weather-beaten face, was like the rest. Her lover had been a soldier, had fallen out of the ranks in a long march, and died of typhus in a hut by the roadside. It was months before she heard of it--months during which she waited, and hungered, and hoped. "And yet you lived?" asked Therese, looking at the brown face in wonder. "_Si fait, si fait_," said Nannon, laughing and showing her white teeth. "If people died of such things, mademoiselle, the world would never go on as it does. And there was my sister to take care of besides; it would have been very selfish to talk about dying." This sister and her children seemed all the world to Nannon. It appeared to Therese as if the whole burden of their existence fell upon those broad old willing shoulders. Once she had asked what Mere Belot did, and Nannon quite ruffled up at the question. "If Mademoiselle were a mother she would know that is enough," she said, reproachfully. Therese could not understand her. Afterwards she found out by some chance that Mere Belot was one of those incapable women who are always taken care of, and toiled for, and shielded. There are poor queen bees as well as rich ones, and her sister brought her as much honey as she could scrape together, and pinched, and struggled, and fought for the children, while Mere Belot sat in the street outside the house and spun a little cotton yarn between her intervals of gossip, and accepted her good things placidly. They came to her quite as a matter of course; and, though it be but a poor little hive, it makes a great difference whether you are the queen or the working bee.