soon found out that her repulsive features indicated but too well her ignoble instincts.  After leading a life of vice and shame, she had, with the approach of old age, fallen into the most abject poverty, and had adopted the trade of vegetable-vender, which she carried on just enough to escape absolute starvation.  Enraged at her fate, she found a detestable pleasure in ill-treating me, or in endeavoring to stain my imagination by the foulest speeches.

“Ah, if I had only known where to fly, and where to take refuge!  But, abusing my ignorance, that execrable woman had persuaded me, that, if I attempted to go out alone, I would be arrested.  And I knew no one to whom I could apply for protection and advice.  And then I began to learn that beauty, to a poor girl, is a fatal gift.  One by one, the woman had sold every thing I had,—­dresses, underclothes, jewels; and I was now reduced to rags almost as mean as when I was with the laundress.

“Every morning, rain or shine, hot or cold, we started, wheeling our cart from village to village, all along the Seine, from Courbevoie to Pont-Marly.  I could see no end to this wretched existence, when one evening the commissary of police presented himself at our hovel, and ordered us to follow him.

“We were taken to prison; and there I found myself thrown among some hundred women, whose faces, words, and gestures frightened me.  The vegetable-woman had committed a theft; and I was accused of complicity.  Fortunately I was easily able to demonstrate my innocence; and, at the end of two weeks, a jailer opened the door to me, saying, ‘Go:  you are free!’”

Maxence understood now the gently ironical smile with which Mlle. Lucienne had heard him assert that he, too, had been very unhappy.  What a life hers had been!  And how could such things be within a step of Paris, in the midst of a society which deems its organization too perfect to consent to modify it!

Mlle. Lucienne went on, speaking somewhat faster,

“I was indeed free; but of what use could my freedom be to me?  I knew not which way to go.  A mechanical instinct took me back to Rueil.  I fancied I would be safer among people who all knew me, and that I might find shelter in our old lodgings.  But this last hope was disappointed.  Immediately after our arrest, the owner of the building had thrown out every thing it contained, and had rented it to a hideous beggar, who offered me, with a giggle, to become his housekeeper.  I ran off as fast as I could.

“The situation was certainly more horrible now than the day when I had been turned out of my benefactress’ house.  But the eight months I had just spent with the horrible woman had taught me anew how to bear misery, and had nerved up my energy.