“There was plenty of work.  By working twelve hours, with the help of the thrice-blessed sewing-machine, we succeeded in making six, seven, and even eight francs a day.  It was a fortune.

“Thus several months elapsed in comparative comfort.

“Once more I was afloat, and I had more clothes than I had lost in my trunk.  I liked the life I was leading; and I would be leading it still, if my friend had not one day fallen desperately in love with a young man she had met at a ball.  I disliked him very much, and took no trouble to conceal my feelings:  nevertheless, my friend imagined that I had designs upon him, and became fiercely jealous of me.  Jealousy does not reason; and I soon understood that we would no longer be able to live in common, and that I must look elsewhere for shelter.  But my friend gave me no time to do so.

“Coming home one Monday night at about eleven, she notified me to clear out at once.  I attempted to expostulate:  she replied with abuse.  Rather than enter upon a degrading struggle, I yielded, and went out.

“That night I spent on a chair in a neighbor’s room.  But the next day, when I went for my things, my former friend refused to give them, and presumed to keep every thing.  I was compelled, though reluctantly, to resort to the intervention of the commissary of police.

“I gained my point.  But the good days had gone.  Luck did not follow me to the wretched furnished house where I hired a room.  I had no sewing-machine, and but few acquaintances.  By working fifteen or sixteen hours a day, I made thirty or forty cents.  That was not enough to live on.  Then work failed me altogether, and, piece by piece, every thing I had went to the pawnbroker’s.  On a gloomy December morning, I was turned out of my room, and left on the pavement with a ten-cent-piece for my fortune.

“Never had I been so low; and I know not to what extremities I might have come at last, when I happened to think of that wealthy lady whose horses had upset me on the Boulevard.  I had kept her card.  Without hesitation, I went unto a grocery, and calling for some paper and a pen, I wrote, overcoming the last struggle of my pride,

“’Do you remember, madame, a poor girl whom your carriage came near crushing to death?  Once before she applied to you, and received no answer.  She is to-day without shelter and without bread; and you are her supreme hope.’

“I placed these few lines in an envelope, and ran to the address indicated on the card.  It was a magnificent residence, with a vast court-yard in front.  In the porter’s lodge, five or six servants were talking as I came in, and looked at me impudently, from head to foot, when I requested them to take my letter to Mme. de Thaller.  One of them, however, took pity on me,

“‘Come with me,’ he said, ‘come along!’

“He made me cross the yard, and enter the vestibule; and then,