eet; the ground floor was occupied by a hair-dresser. Two
bedrooms, a dining-room and a kitchen, formed the whole of their
apartments, and Madame Caravan spent nearly her whole time in cleaning
them up, while her daughter, Marie-Louise, who was twelve, and her son,
Philippe-Auguste, were running about with all the little, dirty,
mischievous brats of the neighborhood, and playing in the gutters.

Caravan had installed his mother, whose avarice was notorious in the
neighborhood, and who was terribly thin, in the room above them. She
was always in a bad temper, and she never passed a day without
quarreling and flying into furious tempers. She used to apostrophize the
neighbors, who were standing at their own doors, the coster-mongers, the
street-sweepers, and the street-boys, in the most violent language, and
the latter, to have their revenge, used to follow her at a distance when
she went out, and call out rude things after her.

A little servant from Normandy, who was incredibly giddy and thoughtless,
performed the household work, and slept on the second floor, in the same
room as the old woman, for fear of anything happening to her in the
night.

When Caravan got in, his wife, who suffered from a chronic passion for
cleaning, was polishing up the mahogany chairs that were scattered about
the room, with a piece of flannel. She always wore cotton gloves, and
adorned her head with a cap, which was ornamented with many colored
ribbons, which was always tilted on one ear, and whenever anyone caught
her polishing, sweeping, or washing, she used to say:--

"I am not rich; everything is very simple in my house, but cleanliness is
my luxury, and that is worth quite as much as any other."

As she was gifted with sound, obstinate, practical common sense, she led
her husband in everything. Every evening during dinner, and afterwards,
when they were in bed, they talked over the business in the office for
a long time, and, although she was twenty years younger than he, he
confided everything to her, as if she had had the direction, and followed
her advice in every matter.

She had never been pretty, and now she had grown ugly; in addition to
that, she was short and thin, while her careless and tasteless way of
dressing herself, hid her few, small feminine attributes, which might
have been brought out if she had possessed any skill in dress. Her
petticoats were always awry, and she frequently scratched herself, no
matter on what