a singer, and an actress, had thought of doing as so many of the working-women do; but the fear of consequences kept her from vice.  She was floating undecidedly along, when Minard appeared upon the scene with a definite proposal of marriage.  Zelie earned five hundred francs a year, Minard had fifteen hundred.  Believing that they could live on two thousand, they married without settlements, and started with the utmost economy.  They went to live, like dove-turtles, near the barriere de Courcelles, in a little apartment at three hundred francs a year, with white cotton curtains to the windows, a Scotch paper costing fifteen sous a roll on the walls, brick floors well polished, walnut furniture in the parlor, and a tiny kitchen that was very clean.  Zelie nursed her children herself when they came, cooked, made her flowers, and kept the house.  There was something very touching in this happy and laborious mediocrity.  Feeling that Minard truly loved her, Zelie loved him.  Love begets love,—­it is the abyssus abyssum of the Bible.  The poor man left his bed in the morning before his wife was up, that he might fetch provisions.  He carried the flowers she had finished, on his way to the bureau, and bought her materials on his way back; then, while waiting for dinner, he stamped out her leaves, trimmed the twigs, or rubbed her colors.  Small, slim, and wiry, with crisp red hair, eyes of a light yellow, a skin of dazzling fairness, though blotched with red, the man had a sturdy courage that made no show.  He knew the science of writing quite as well as Vimeux.  At the office he kept in the background, doing his allotted task with the collected air of a man who thinks and suffers.  His white eyelashes and lack of eyebrows induced the relentless Bixiou to name him “the white rabbit.”  Minard—­the Rabourdin of a lower sphere—­was filled with the desire of placing his Zelie in better circumstances, and his mind searched the ocean of the wants of luxury in hopes of finding an idea, of making some discovery or some improvement which would bring him a rapid fortune.  His apparent dulness was really caused by the continual tension of his mind; he went over the history of Cephalic Oils and the Paste of Sultans, lucifer matches and portable gas, jointed sockets for hydrostatic lamps,—­in short, all the infinitely little inventions of material civilization which pay so well.  He bore Bixiou’s jests as a busy man bears the buzzing of an insect; he was not even annoyed by them.  In spite of his cleverness, Bixiou never perceived the profound contempt which Minard felt for him.  Minard never dreamed of quarrelling, however,—­regarding it as a loss of time.  After a while his composure tired out his tormentor.  He always breakfasted with his wife, and ate nothing at the office.  Once a month he took Zelie to the theatre, with tickets bestowed by du Bruel or Bixiou; for Bixiou was capable of anything, even of doing a kindness.  Monsieur and Madame Minard paid their visits in person on New-Year’s