du Roi-Dore.

Risler insisted upon the plan of having the little one serve an
apprenticeship. "Let her learn a trade," said the honest fellow. "Later
I will undertake to set her up in business."

Indeed, this same Mademoiselle Le Mire spoke of retiring in a few years.
It was an excellent opportunity.

One morning, a dull day in November, her father took her to the Rue du
Rio-Dore, to the fourth floor of an old house, even older and blacker
than her own home.

On the ground floor, at the entrance to the hall, hung a number of signs
with gilt letters: Depot for Travelling-Bags, Plated Chains, Children's
Toys, Mathematical Instruments in Glass, Bouquets for Brides and
Maids of Honor, Wild Flowers a Specialty; and above was a little dusty
show-case, wherein pearls, yellow with age, glass grapes and cherries
surrounded the pretentious name of Angelina Le Mire.

What a horrible house!

It had not even a broad landing like that of the Chebes, grimy with old
age, but brightened by its window and the beautiful prospect presented
by the factory. A narrow staircase, a narrow door, a succession of rooms
with brick floors, all small and cold, and in the last an old maid
with a false front and black thread mitts, reading a soiled copy of the
'Journal pour Tous,' and apparently very much annoyed to be disturbed in
her reading.

Mademoiselle Le Mire (written in two words) received the father and
daughter without rising, discoursed at great length of the rank she
had lost, of her father, an old nobleman of Le Rouergue--it is most
extraordinary how many old noblemen Le Rouergue has produced!--and of
an unfaithful steward who had carried off their whole fortune.
She instantly aroused the sympathies of M. Chebe, for whom decayed
gentlefolk had an irresistible charm, and he went away overjoyed,
promising his daughter to call for her at seven o'clock at night in
accordance with the terms agreed upon.

The apprentice was at once ushered into the still empty workroom.
Mademoiselle Le Mire seated her in front of a great drawer filled with
pearls, needles, and bodkins, with instalments of four-sou novels thrown
in at random among them.

It was Sidonie's business to sort the pearls and string them in
necklaces of equal length, which were tied together to be sold to the
small dealers. Then the young women would soon be there and they would
show her exactly what she would have to do, for Mademoiselle Le Mire
(always written in two word