as ended there. But it goes on for others
still and can. My father has lived till I too am almost old. My brother
lives yet, and my boy, Pierre, who was shot at Balaklava, he has two
children and his wife, who is _couturiere_, and I must aid them. I
remain weaver, and I earn always the same. Wages stay as in the
beginning, but all else is more and more. One may live, but that is
all. Many days we have only bread; sometimes not enough even of that.
But the end comes. I have always my St. Etienne, and often under the
window I see my Etienne's smile, and know well the good God has cared
for him, and I need no more. I could wish only that the children might
be saved, but I cannot tell. France needs them; but I think well she
needs them more as souls than as hands that earn wages, though truly I
am old and it may be that I do not know what is best. Tell me, madame,
must the children also work always with you, or do you care for other
things than work, and is there time for one to live and grow as a plant
in the sunshine? That is what I wish for the children; but Paris knows
no such life, nor can it, since we must live, and so I must wait, and
that is all."

CHAPTER XIX.

IN THE RUE JEANNE D'ARC.

"No, madame, unless one has genius or much money in the beginning, it is
only possible to live, and sometimes one believes that it is not living.
If it were not that all in Paris is so beautiful, how would I have borne
much that I have known? But always, when even the hunger has been most
sharp, has been the sky so blue and clear, and the sun shining down on
the beautiful boulevards, and all so bright, so gay, why should I show a
face of sorrow?

"I have seen the war, it is true. I have known almost the starving, for
in those days all go hungry; most of all, those who have little to buy
with. But one bears the hunger better when one has been born to it, and
that is what has been for me.

"In the Rue Jeanne d'Arc we are all hungry, and it is as true to-day,
yes, more true, than in the days when I was young. The charitable, who
give more and more each year in Paris, will not believe there is such a
quarter, but for us, we know. Have you seen the Rue Jeanne d'Arc,
madame? Do you know what can be for this Paris that is so fair?"

This question came in the square before old Notre Dame, still the church
of the poor, its gray towers and carved portals dearer to them than to
the Paris which counts the Madeleine a far better p