he was quite awake and then kissed her
soundly on both cheeks, until Yvonne laughed over her fright.

"_Oh, mon Dieu!_ but I was frightened," sighed the child, and sat up
straight, smoothing back her tumbled hair. "Oh! la! la!" she gasped.

"They are beauties, _hein!_" exclaimed Marianne, nodding to an oozing
basketful of mackerel; then, kneeling by the basket, she plunged her red
hands under the slimy, glittering mass of fish, lifting and dropping
them that the child might see the average size in the catch.

"_Eh ben!_" declared Marianne, "some day when thou art bigger, _ma
petite_, I'll take thee where thou canst make some silver. There's half
a louis' worth there if there's a sou!" There was a gleam of
satisfaction in her eyes, as she bent over her basket again, dressed as
she was in a pair of fisherman's trousers cut off at the knees.

"One can play the lady on half a louis," she continued, covering her
fish from the sun with her bundle of nets. "My man shall have a full
bottle of the best to-night," she added, wiping her wet hands across her
strong bare knees.

"How much 'cake' does that old crab of a Bourron pay thee?" she
inquired, turning again to the child.

"Six sous a day, and then my food and lodging," confessed Yvonne.

"He won't ruin himself," muttered Marianne.

"They say the girl at the Three Wolves gets ten," added the child with
awe, "but thou knowest how--she must do the washing besides."

Marianne's square jaw shut hard. She glanced at Yvonne's patched skirt,
the one that had been the Mere Bourron's winter petticoat, feeling its
quality as critically as a fashionable dressmaker.

"_Sacristi!_" she exclaimed, examining a rent, "there's one door that
the little north wind won't knock twice at before he enters. Keep still,
_ma petite_, I've got thread and a needle."

She drew from her trousers' pocket a leather wallet in which lay four
two-sous pieces, an iron key and a sail needle driven through a ball of
linen thread. "It is easily seen thou art not in love," laughed
Marianne, as she cross-stitched the tear. "Thou wilt pay ten sous for a
ribbon gladly some day when thou art in love."

The child was silent while she sewed. Presently she asked timidly, "One
eats well there?"

"Where?"

"But thou knowest--_there_."

"In the prison?"

"_Mais oui_," whispered Yvonne.

"Of course," growled Marianne, "one eats well; it is perfect. _Tiens!_
we have the good soup, that is well understood;