There were only two flowers for which Cadine retained respect; white lilac, which by the bundle of eight or ten sprays cost from fifteen to twenty francs in the winter time; and camellias, which were still more costly, and arrived in boxes of a dozen, lying on beds of moss, and covered with cotton wool.  She handled these as delicately as though they were jewels, holding her breath for fear of dimming their lustre, and fastening their short stems to springs of cane with the tenderest care.  She spoke of them with serious reverence.  She told Marjolin one day that a speckless white camellia was a very rare and exceptionally lovely thing, and, as she was making him admire one, he exclaimed:  “Yes; it’s pretty; but I prefer your neck, you know.  It’s much more soft and transparent than the camellia, and there are some little blue and pink veins just like the pencillings on a flower.”  Then, drawing near and sniffing, he murmured:  “Ah! you smell of orange blossom to-day.”

Cadine was self-willed, and did not get on well in the position of a servant, so she ended by setting up in business on her own account.  As she was only thirteen at the time, and could not hope for a big trade and a stall in the flower avenue, she took to selling one-sou bunches of violets pricked into a bed of moss in an osier tray which she carried hanging from her neck.  All day long she wandered about the markets and their precincts with her little bit of hanging garden.  She loved this continual stroll, which relieved the numbness of her limbs after long hours spent, with bent knees, on a low chair, making bouquets.  She fastened her violets together with marvellous deftness as she walked along.  She counted out six or eight flowers, according to the season, doubled a sprig of cane in half, added a leaf, twisted some damp thread round the whole, and broke off the thread with her strong young teeth.  The little bunches seemed to spring spontaneously from the layer of moss, so rapidly did she stick them into it.

Along the footways, amidst the jostling of the street traffic, her nimble fingers were ever flowering though she gave them not a glance, but boldly scanned the shops and passers-by.  Sometimes she would rest in a doorway for a moment; and alongside the gutters, greasy with kitchen slops, she sat, as it were a patch of springtime, a suggestion of green woods, and purple blossoms.  Her flowers still betokened her frame of mind, her fits of bad temper and her thrills of tenderness.  Sometimes they bristled and glowered with anger amidst their crumpled leaves; at other times they spoke only of love and peacefulness as they smiled in their prim collars.  As Cadine passed along, she left a sweet perfume behind her; Marjolin followed her devoutly.  From head to foot she now exhaled but one scent, and the lad repeated that she was herself a violet, a great big violet.

“Do you remember the day when we went to Romainville together?” he would say; “Romainville, where there are so many violets.  The scent was just the same.  Oh! don’t change again—­you smell too sweetly.”