“She has been with little Muche,” said the old maid, in her malicious voice.  “I took her away at once, and I’ve brought her home.  I found them together in the square.  I don’t know what they’ve been up to; but that young vagabond is capable of anything.”

Lisa could not find a word to say; and she did not know where to take hold of her daughter, so great was her disgust at the sight of the child’s muddy boots, soiled stockings, torn skirts, and filthy face and hands.  The blue velvet ribbon, the earrings, and the necklet were all concealed beneath a crust of mud.  But what put the finishing touch to Lisa’s exasperation was the discovery of the two pockets filled with mould.  She stooped and emptied them, regardless of the pink and white flooring of the shop.  And as she dragged Pauline away, she could only gasp:  “Come along, you filthy thing!”

Quite enlivened by this scene, Mademoiselle Saget now hurriedly made her way across the Rue Rambuteau.  Her little feet scarcely touched the ground; her joy seemed to carry her along like a breeze which fanned her with a caressing touch.  She had at last found out what she had so much wanted to know!  For nearly a year she had been consumed by curiosity, and now at a single stroke she had gained complete power over Florent!  This was unhoped-for contentment, positive salvation, for she felt that Florent would have brought her to the tomb had she failed much longer in satisfying her curiosity about him.  At present she was complete mistress of the whole neighbourhood of the markets.  There was no longer any gap in her information.  She could have narrated the secret history of every street, shop by shop.  And thus, as she entered the fruit market, she fairly gasped with delight, in a perfect transport of pleasure.

“Hallo, Mademoiselle Saget,” cried La Sarriette from her stall, “what are you smiling to yourself like that about?  Have you won the grand prize in the lottery?”

“No, no.  Ah, my dear, if you only knew!”

Standing there amidst her fruit, La Sarriette, in her picturesque disarray, looked charming.  Frizzy hair fell over her brow like vine branches.  Her bare arms and neck, indeed all the rosy flesh she showed, bloomed with the freshness of peach and cherry.  She had playfully hung some cherries on her ears, black cherries which dangled against her cheeks when she stooped, shaking with merry laughter.  She was eating currants, and her merriment arose from the way in which she was smearing her face with them.  Her lips were bright red, glistening with the juice of the fruit, as though they had been painted and perfumed with some seraglio face-paint.  A perfume of plum exhaled from her gown, while from the kerchief carelessly fastened across her breast came an odour of strawberries.