terror, and anxiously asked for further particulars; but the girl would then begin to jeer at him, and end by calling him a big donkey.  At other times they were not so peaceably disposed, but kicked each other beneath the blankets.  Cadine would pull up her legs, and try to restrain her laughter as Marjolin missed his aim, and sent his feet banging against the wall.  When this happened, old Madame Chantemesse was obliged to get up to put the bed-clothes straight again; and, by way of sending the children to sleep, she would administer a box on the ear to both of them.  For a long time their bed was a sort of playground.  They carried their toys into it, and munched stolen carrots and turnips as they lay side by side.  Every morning their adopted mother was amazed at the strange things she found in the bed—­pebbles, leaves, apple cores, and dolls made out of scraps of rags.  When the very cold weather came, she went off to her work, leaving them sleeping there, Cadine’s black mop mingling with Marjolin’s sunny curls, and their mouths so near together that they looked as though they were keeping each other warm with their breath.

The room in the Rue au Lard was a big, dilapidated garret, with a single window, the panes of which were dimmed by the rain.  The children would play at hide-and-seek in the tall walnut wardrobe and underneath Mother Chantemesse’s colossal bed.  There were also two or three tables in the room, and they crawled under these on all fours.  They found the place a very charming playground, on account of the dim light and the vegetables scattered about in the dark corners.  The street itself, too, narrow and very quiet, with a broad arcade opening into the Rue de la Lingerie, provided them with plenty of entertainment.  The door of the house was by the side of the arcade; it was a low door and could only be opened half way owing to the near proximity of the greasy corkscrew staircase.  The house, which had a projecting pent roof and a bulging front, dark with damp, and displaying greenish drain-sinks near the windows of each floor, also served as a big toy for the young couple.  They spent their mornings below in throwing stones up into the drain-sinks, and the stones thereupon fell down the pipes with a very merry clatter.  In thus amusing themselves, however, they managed to break a couple of windows, and filled the drains with stones, so that Mother Chantemesse, who had lived in the house for three and forty years, narrowly escaped being turned out of it.

Cadine and Marjolin then directed their attention to the vans and drays and tumbrels which were drawn up in the quiet street.  They clambered on to the wheels, swung from the dangling chains, and larked about amongst the piles of boxes and hampers.  Here also were the back premises of the commission agents of the Rue de la Poterie—­huge, gloomy warehouses, each day filled and emptied afresh, and affording a constant succession of delightful hiding-places,