His mother was, and is, a seamstress, or a house servant, or woman of all work, or a shop girl. His father--well, it is doubtful if the mother could give any very definite information on that subject. She may have been a true daughter of Paris, or she may have come from the delicious valleys of Normandy or Brittany, or the mountains of Switzerland, with her heavy shoes, her quaint bodice, and her long, braided hair hanging down her shapely back. She got work, she wrought in a clothing warehouse, or she went behind a counter; then came the balls in the Latin quarter (it is a part of the nature of the girls of this country to love lights and glitter and dancing, and the like); then appeared the student with his half-polished brigandage, and then began the life of a grisette. They lived together till the student was called home, and he went back to his native country to marry and settle down into respectable citizenship, forgetting entirely the poor little girl he left behind, and the wee baby she had borne him. [Illustration: THE MOTHER OF THE GAMIN--AS SHE WAS.] But whoever his father might have been he never saw him that he remembers, and he has a very indistinct idea of what a father is. The uncertainty of fatherhood in Paris is illustrated by the grisette who was walking with her little boy. A funeral procession was passing:-- "Who is it that is dead?" asked the boy of his mother. "I do not know, but take off your hat, my child. It may be your father!" It was not unlikely. I don't think this ever happened, however, for in France, every one removes his hat while a funeral passes. They are polite to the dead as to the living. Besides this, the boy had no hat to remove. [Sidenote: THE MOTHER OF THE GAMIN.] He knows his mother, however, very well; he remembers a pale, worn woman, who always gave him the largest half of the scant bread, and assuaged her hunger by seeing him eat, and who managed somehow to keep the rags that hung about him clean, and had hidden somewhere, a neat and tidy suit of clothes which were worn only on fête days, and when they went to church. No matter about the father, since every boy knows who his mother is, and he knows likewise that whatever may happen to her, he is sure of all she can possibly do for him, even to the last, the supreme sacrifice. They lived together in a garret, somewhere, or a cellar. With these people it is always one extreme or another,--they never have the middle of anything. [Illustration: THE MOTHER OF THE GAMIN IN THE SERE AND YELLOW LEAF.]