ented the pushing with coarse
expressions, whilst all around was a clamour of voices growing hoarse
by prolonged wrangling over a sou or two. Florent was astonished by
the calmness of the female market gardeners, with bandanas and bronzed
faces, displayed amidst all this garrulous bargaining of the markets.

Behind him, on the footway of the Rue Rambuteau, fruit was being sold.
Hampers and low baskets covered with canvas or straw stood there in long
lines, a strong odour of over-ripe mirabelle plums was wafted hither and
thither. At last a subdued and gentle voice, which he had heard for some
time past, induced him to turn his head, and he saw a charming darksome
little woman sitting on the ground and bargaining.

"Come now, Marcel," said she, "you'll take a hundred sous, won't you?"

The man to whom she was speaking was closely wrapped in his cloak and
made no reply; however, after a silence of five minutes or more, the
young woman returned to the charge.

"Come now, Marcel; a hundred sous for that basket there, and four francs
for the other one; that'll make nine francs altogether."

Then came another interval.

"Well, tell me what you will take."

"Ten francs. You know that well enough already; I told you so before.
But what have you done with your Jules this morning, La Sarriette?"

The young woman began to laugh as she took a handful of small change out
of her pocket.

"Oh," she replied, "Jules is still in bed. He says that men were not
intended to work."

She paid for the two baskets, and carried them into the fruit pavilion,
which had just been opened. The market buildings still retained their
gloom-wrapped aspect of airy fragility, streaked with the thousand lines
of light that gleamed from the venetian shutters. People were beginning
to pass along the broad covered streets intersecting the pavilions, but
the more distant buildings still remained deserted amidst the increasing
buzz of life on the footways. By Saint Eustache the bakers and wine
sellers were taking down their shutters, and the ruddy shops, with their
gas lights flaring, showed like gaps of fire in the gloom in which the
grey house-fronts were yet steeped. Florent noticed a baker's shop on
the left-hand side of the Rue Montorgueil, replete and golden with its
last baking, and fancied he could scent the pleasant smell of the hot
bread. It was now half past four.

Madame Francois by this time had disposed of nearly all her stock. She
had