ust
count!... Then there are my two girls. I've had to send them to
school; Lucienne has begun to learn the piano and Marcelle has some taste
for drawing.... By the way, I would have brought them with me, but I
feared it would upset them too much. You will excuse me, won't you?"

Then she spoke of all the worries which she had had with her husband on
account of Salvat's ignominious death. Chretiennot, vain, quarrelsome
little fellow that he was, felt exasperated at now having a _guillotine_
in his wife's family. And he had lately begun to treat the unfortunate
woman most harshly, charging her with having brought about all their
troubles, and even rendering her responsible for his own mediocrity,
embittered as he was more and more each day by a confined life of office
work. On some evenings they had downright quarrels; she stood up for
herself, and related that when she was at the confectionery shop in the
Rue des Martyrs she could have married a doctor had she only chosen, for
the doctor found her quite pretty enough. Now, however, she was becoming
plainer and plainer, and her husband felt that he was condemned to
everlasting penury; so that their life was becoming more and more dismal
and quarrelsome, and as unbearable--despite the pride of being
"gentleman" and "lady"--as was the destitution of the working classes.

"All the same, my dear," at last said Madame Toussaint, weary of her
sister-in-law's endless narrative of worries, "you have had one piece of
luck. You won't have the trouble of bringing up a third child, now."

"That's true," replied Hortense, with a sigh of relief. "How we should
have managed, I don't know.... Still, I was very ill, and I'm far from
being in good health now. The doctor says that I don't eat enough, and
that I ought to have good food."

Then she rose for the purpose of giving her brother another kiss and
taking her departure; for she feared a scene on her husband's part should
he happen to come home and find her absent. Once on her feet, however,
she lingered there a moment longer, saying that she also had just seen
her sister, Madame Theodore, and little Celine, both of them comfortably
clad and looking happy. And with a touch of jealousy she added: "Well, my
husband contents himself with slaving away at his office every day. He'll
never do anything to get his head cut off; and it's quite certain that
nobody will think of leaving an income to Marcelle and Lucienne....
Well, good by, m