the cut, I shoved Victoire, and she
pushed at me again, and I was keeping her off, and her foot slipped, and
down she fell, and caught by the press-door, and pulled it and me after
her, and that's all I know."

"It is well that you were not both killed," said Madame de Fleury. "Are
you often left locked up in this manner by yourselves, and without
anything to do?"

"Yes, always, when mamma is abroad, except sometimes we are let out upon
the stairs or in the street; but mamma says we get into mischief there."

This dialogue was interrupted by the return of the mother. She came
upstairs slowly, much fatigued, and with a heavy bundle under her arm.

"How now! Maurice, how comes my door open? What's all this?" cried she,
in an angry voice; but seeing a lady sitting upon her child's bed, she
stopped short in great astonishment. Madame de Fleury related what had
happened, and averted her anger from Maurice by gently expostulating upon
the hardship and hazard of leaving her young children in this manner
during so many hours of the day.

"Why, my lady," replied the poor woman, wiping her forehead, "every hard-
working woman in Paris does the same with her children; and what can I do
else? I must earn bread for these helpless ones, and to do that I must
be out backwards and forwards, and to the furthest parts of the town,
often from morning till night, with those that employ me; and I cannot
afford to send the children to school, or to keep any kind of a servant
to look after them; and when I'm away, if I let them run about these
stairs and entries, or go into the sheets, they do get a little exercise
and air, to be sure, such as it is on which account I do let them out
sometimes; but then a deal of mischief comes of that, too: they learn all
kinds of wickedness, and would grow up to be no better than pickpockets,
if they were let often to consort with the little vagabonds they find in
the streets. So what to do better for them I don't know."

The poor mother sat down upon the fallen press, looked at Victoire, and
wept bitterly. Madame de Fleury was struck with compassion; but she did
not satisfy her feelings merely by words or comfort or by the easy
donation of some money--she resolved to do something more, and something
better.

CHAPTER II

"Come often, then; for haply in my bower
Amusement, knowledge, wisdom, thou may'st gain:
If I one soul improve, I have not lived in vain."--BEATTIE.

It is