o was
brought up like a queen and allowed to have her own way in everything!
If any one had predicted this in those days, how she would have sneered!
I can see her now as she looked that day when I met her driving her gray
ponies. If people didn't clear the road it was so much the worse for
them! In those times Paris was like some great shop where she could
select whatever she chose. She said: 'I want this,' and she got it. She
saw a handsome young fellow and wanted him for her husband; her father,
who could refuse her nothing, consented, and now behold the result!"

He had lingered longer at the window than he had meant to do, perhaps
because he could see that the young woman was talking with some person
in a back room, the door of which stood open. Chupin tried to find out
who this person was, but he did not succeed; and he was about to go in
when suddenly he saw Madame Paul rise from her seat and say a few words
with an air of displeasure. And this time her eyes, instead of turning
to the open door, were fixed on a part of the shop directly opposite
her. "Is there some one there as well, then?" Chupin wondered.

He changed his post of observation, and, by standing on tiptoe, he
succeeded in distinguishing a puny little boy, some three or four years
old, and clad in rags, who was playing with the remnants of a toy-horse.
The sight of this child increased Chupin's indignation. "So there's a
child?" he growled. "The rascal not only deserts his wife, but he leaves
his child to starve! We may as well make a note of that: and when we
settle up our accounts, he shall pay dearly for his villainy." With this
threat he brusquely entered the shop.

"What do you wish, sir?" asked the woman.

"Nothing; I bring you a letter, madame."

"A letter for me! You must be mistaken."

"Excuse me; aren't you Madame Paul?"

"Yes."

"Then this is for you." And he handed her the missive which Florent had
confided to his care.

Madame Paul took hold of it with some hesitation, eying the messenger
suspiciously meanwhile; but, on seeing the handwriting, she uttered
a cry of surprise. And, turning toward the open door, she called, "M.
Mouchon! M. Mouchon! It's from him--it's from my husband; from Paul.
Come, come!"

A bald-headed, corpulent man, who looked some fifty years of age, now
timidly emerged from the room behind the shop with a cap in his hand.
"Ah, well! my dear child," he said, in an oily voice, "what was I
telling you just