uses as these,
poor, cheerless, and unhealthy, are generally inhabited by the working
classes. The house in question was of the number. A dyer occupied the
ground floor; the deleterious vapors arising from his vats added to the
stench of the whole building. On the upper stories, several artisans
lodged with their families, or carried on their different trades. Up four
flights of stairs was the lodging of Frances Baudoin, wife of Dagobert.
It consisted of one room, with a closet adjoining, and was now lighted by
a single candle. Agricola occupied a garret in the roof.

Old grayish paper, broken here and there by the cracks covered the crazy
wall, against which rested the bed; scanty curtains, running upon an iron
rod, concealed the windows; the brick floor, not polished, but often
washed, had preserved its natural color. At one end of this room was a
round iron stove, with a large pot for culinary purposes. On the wooden
table, painted yellow, marbled with brown, stood a miniature house made
of iron--a masterpiece of patience and skill, the work of Agricola
Baudoin, Dagobert's son.

A plaster crucifix hung up against the wall, surrounded by several
branches of consecrated box-tree, and various images of saints, very
coarsely colored, bore witness to the habits of the soldier's wife.
Between the windows stood one of those old walnut-wood presses, curiously
fashioned, and almost black with time; an old arm-chair, covered with
green cotton velvet (Agricola's first present to his mother), a few rush
bottomed chairs, and a worktable on which lay several bags of coarse,
brown cloth, completed the furniture of this room, badly secured by a
worm-eaten door. The adjoining closet contained a few kitchen and
household utensils.

Mean and poor as this interior may perhaps appear, it would not seem so
to the greater number of artisans; for the bed was supplied with two
mattresses, clean sheets, and a warm counterpane; the old-fashioned press
contained linen; and, moreover, Dagobert's wife occupied all to herself a
room as large as those in which numerous families, belonging to honest
and laborious workmen, often live and sleep huddled together--only too
happy if the boys and girls can have separate beds, or if the sheets and
blankets are not pledged at the pawnbroker's.

Frances Baudoin, seated beside the small stove, which, in the cold and
damp weather, yielded but little warmth, was busied in preparing her son
Agricola's evenin