It was a big affair.  She got up early in the morning and purchased her stock of groundsel, millet, and bird-cake from the wholesale dealers.  Then she set out on her day’s work, crossing the river, and perambulating the Latin Quarter from the Rue Saint Jacques to the Rue Dauphine, and even to the Luxembourg.  Marjolin used to accompany her, but she would not let him carry the basket.  He was only fit to call out, she said; and so, in his thick, drawling voice, he would raise the cry, “Chickweed for the little birds!”

Then Cadine herself, with her flute-like voice, would start on a strange scale of notes ending in a clear, protracted alto, “Chickweed for the little birds!”

They each took one side of the road, and looked up in the air as they walked along.  In those days Marjolin wore a big scarlet waistcoat which hung down to his knees; it had belonged to the defunct Monsieur Chantemesse, who had been a cab-driver.  Cadine for her part wore a white and blue check gown, made out of an old tartan of Madame Chantemesse’s.  All the canaries in the garrets of the Latin Quarter knew them; and, as they passed along, repeating their cry, each echoing the other’s voice, every cage poured out a song.

Cadine sold water-cress, too.  “Two sous a bunch!  Two sous a bunch!” And Marjolin went into the shops to offer it for sale.  “Fine water-cress!  Health for the body!  Fine fresh water-cress!”

However, the new central markets had just been erected, and the girl would stand gazing in ecstacy at the avenue of flower stalls which runs through the fruit pavilion.  Here on either hand, from end to end, big clumps of flowers bloom as in the borders of a garden walk.  It is a perfect harvest, sweet with perfume, a double hedge of blossoms, between which the girls of the neighbourhood love to walk, smiling the while, though almost stifled by the heavy perfume.  And on the top tiers of the stalls are artificial flowers, with paper leaves, in which dewdrops are simulated by drops of gum; and memorial wreaths of black and white beads rippling with bluish reflections.  Cadine’s rosy nostrils would dilate with feline sensuality; she would linger as long as possible in that sweet freshness, and carry as much of the perfume away with her as she could.  When her hair bobbed under Marjolin’s nose he would remark that it smelt of pinks.  She said that she had given over using pomatum; that is was quite sufficient for her to stroll through the flower walk in order to scent her hair.  Next she began to intrigue and scheme with such success that she was engaged by one of the stallkeepers.  And then Marjolin declared that she smelt sweet from head to foot.  She lived in the midst of roses, lilacs, wall-flowers, and lilies of the valley; and Marjolin would playfully smell at her skirts, feign a momentary hesitation, and then exclaim, “Ah, that’s lily of the valley!” Next he would sniff at her waist and bodice:  “Ah, that’s wall-flowers!” And at