laneous mass of rags that constituted her costume.

In this menage of the begging Frochards, the crippled scissors-grinder
Pierre was the only individual worth his salt, and he was heartily
despised by his brother Jacques and his mother.

The hag's black eyes snapped as she saw Louise whom the hunchback had
saved from the water.

"Pretty--blind--she'll beg us lots of money!" she said gleefully to
Jacques. But to the girl she pretended aid, and her leathern,
liquor-coated voice proclaimed:

"No friends, eh, Dearie? Then I'll take care of you!"

Only poor Pierre sympathized with Louise's awful grief in being thrown
adrift on Paris through the violent disappearance of her beloved
sister. He trembled to think what knavery his wicked kinsfolk meant,
though he himself was their helpless slave; the target of kicks,
cuffs, and the robbery of all his earnings.

La Frochard led the way to their dank and noisome den, opening from a
street trap-door and giving at the other extremity on a sort of
water-rat exit underneath the pier. She handed Louise down the steps
and taking her things remarked in a self-satisfied tone: "Here are
your lodgings, Dearie!"

The old woman arrayed herself in Louise's shawl, and grinned as she
tried on the girl's widespread garden hat. She flung the girl about
roughly, even choking her. To heighten the rosy picture of great
wealth to accrue, she took a deep draught of cognac from her loved
black bottle. Poor Louise sank down to deep slumber, from which
neither the noisy potations of La Frochard and Jacques, nor their
cursing and abuse of the hunchback Pierre, sufficed to awaken her.

Next morning the hag pulled the blind girl out of the rough bed and
dressed her in beggar's garments.

"You must go out now on the street with us and sing!" she said.

"... But you promised to help me find Henriette...." said the poor
girl, piteously.

"We'll find her for you one of these days, but in the meantime you
must earn your keep. No--I don't mean, actually beg! You do the
singing, and I'll do the begging."

"Never!" cried Louise. "You may kill me if you will, but I'll not be a
street beggar. Why, the very first person we meet, I'll ask to save me
and inform the police!"

"I'll fix you, my fine lady!" screamed La Frochard, throwing her from
her. "Come, Jacques," she said to her ruffian son, "we'll trying a
means of making her mind!" Together they seized and started dragging
her to the steps of a sub-c