however, he allowed his
nephew six francs a month a pocket-money.

Quenu now became quite happy, in spite of the emptiness of his purse and
the harshness with which he was occasionally treated. He liked to have
life doled out to him; Florent had treated him too much like an indolent
girl. Moreover, he had made a friend at his uncle's. Gradelle, when his
wife died, had been obliged to engage a girl to attend to the shop, and
had taken care to choose a healthy and attractive one, knowing that a
good-looking girl would set off his viands and help to tempt custom.
Amongst his acquaintances was a widow, living in the Rue Cuvier, near
the Jardin des Plantes, whose deceased husband had been postmaster at
Plassans, the seat of a sub-prefecture in the south of France. This
lady, who lived in a very modest fashion on a small annuity, had brought
with her from Plassans a plump, pretty child, whom she treated as her
own daughter. Lisa, as the young one was called, attended upon her with
much placidity and serenity of disposition. Somewhat seriously inclined,
she looked quite beautiful when she smiled. Indeed, her great charm came
from the exquisite manner in which she allowed this infrequent smile
of hers to escape her. Her eyes then became most caressing, and her
habitual gravity imparted inestimable value to these sudden, seductive
flashes. The old lady had often said that one of Lisa's smiles would
suffice to lure her to perdition.

When the widow died she left all her savings, amounting to some ten
thousand francs, to her adopted daughter. For a week Lisa lived alone in
the Rue Cuvier; it was there that Gradelle came in search of her. He had
become acquainted with her by often seeing her with her mistress when
the latter called on him in the Rue Pirouette; and at the funeral
she had struck him as having grown so handsome and sturdy that he had
followed the hearse all the way to the cemetery, though he had not
intended to do so. As the coffin was being lowered into the grave, he
reflected what a splendid girl she would be for the counter of a pork
butcher's shop. He thought the matter over, and finally resolved to
offer her thirty francs a month, with board and lodging. When he made
this proposal, Lisa asked for twenty-four hours to consider it. Then
she arrived one morning with a little bundle of clothes, and her ten
thousand francs concealed in the bosom of her dress. A month later the
whole place belonged to her; she enslav