When Mathieu appeared there, cries of delight arose.  He also was a friend, a saviour—­the one who, by first taking and furnishing the large room, had founded the household.  It was a very clean room, almost coquettish with its white curtains, and rendered very cheerful by its two large windows, which admitted the golden radiance of the afternoon sun.  Norine and Cecile were working at the table, cutting out cardboard and pasting it together, while the little one, who had come home from school, sat between them on a high chair, gravely handling a pair of scissors and fully persuaded that he was helping them.

“Oh! is it you?  How kind of you to come to see us!  Nobody has called for five days past.  Oh! we don’t complain of it.  We are so happy alone together!  Since Irma married a clerk she has treated us with disdain.  Euphrasie can no longer come down her stairs.  Victor and his wife live so far away.  And as for that rascal Alfred, he only comes up here to see if he can find something to steal.  Mamma called five days ago to tell us that papa had narrowly escaped being killed at the works on the previous day.  Poor mamma! she is so worn out that before long she won’t be able to take a step.”

While the sisters thus rattled on both together, one beginning a sentence and the other finishing it, Mathieu looked at Norine, who, thanks to that peaceful and regular life, had regained in her thirty-sixth year a freshness of complexion that suggested a superb, mature fruit gilded by the sun.  And even the slender Cecile had acquired strength, the strength which love’s energy can impart even to a childish form.

All at once, however, she raised a loud exclamation of horror:  “Oh! he has hurt himself, the poor little fellow.”  And at once she snatched the scissors from the child, who sat there laughing with a drop of blood at the tip of one of his fingers.

“Oh! good Heavens,” murmured Norine, who had turned quite pale, “I feared that he had slit his hand.”

For a moment Mathieu wondered if he would serve any useful purpose by fulfilling the strange mission he had undertaken.  Then it seemed to him that it might be as well to say at least a word of warning to the young woman who had grown so calm and quiet, thanks to the life of work which she had at last embraced.  And he proceeded very prudently, only revealing the truth by slow degrees.  Nevertheless, there came a moment when, after reminding Norine of the birth of Alexandre-Honore, it became necessary for him to add that the boy was living.

The mother looked at Mathieu in evident consternation.  “He is living, living!  Why do you tell me that?  I was so pleased at knowing nothing.”

“No doubt; but it is best that you should know.  I have even been assured that he must now be in Paris, and I wondered whether he might have found you, and have come to see you.”

At this she lost all self-possession.  “What!  Have come to see me!  Nobody has been to see me.  Do you think, then, that he might come?  But I don’t want him to do so!  I should go mad!  A big fellow of fifteen falling on me like that—­a lad I don’t know and don’t care for!  Oh! no, no; prevent it, I beg of you; I couldn’t—­I couldn’t bear it!”