I can walk with you."

"Do not be uneasy," said Rodolph, touched by the poor girl's
consideration, and taking her arm again; "my master does not live in
this quarter, and we shall find a coach on the Quai aux Fleurs."

"As you please, M. Rodolph; I only said so that you might not get into
trouble."

"I am sure of that, and thank you very much. But tell me, is it all the
same to you what part of the country we go into?"

"Yes, quite so, M. Rodolph, so that it be the country. It is so fine and
it is so nice to breathe the open air! Do you know that I have not been
farther than the flower-market for these six weeks? And now, if the
ogress allows me to leave the Cite, she must have great confidence in
me."

"And when you came here, was it to buy flowers?"

"Oh, no, I had no money; I only came to look at them, and breathe their
beautiful smell. During the half-hour which the ogress allowed me to
pass on the quay on market-days, I was so happy that I forgot everything
else."

"And on returning to the ogress, and those filthy streets?"

"Oh, why, then I returned more sad than when I set out; but I wiped my
eyes, that I might not be beaten for crying. Yet, at the market, what
made me envious--oh, so envious!--was to see neat, clean little
workwomen, who were going away so gaily with a beautiful pot of flowers
in their hands."

"I am sure that if you had had but a few flowers in your own window,
they would have kept you company."

"What you say is quite true, M. Rodolph. Only imagine, one day, on her
birthday, the ogress, knowing my taste, gave me a little rose-tree. If
you only knew how happy it made me,--I was never tired of looking at
it,--my own rose-tree! I counted its leaves, its flowers; but the air of
the Cite is bad, and it began to wither in two days. Then--but you'll
laugh at me, M. Rodolph."

"No, no; go on."

"Well, then, I asked the ogress to let me go out, and take my rose-tree
for a walk, as I would have taken a child out. Well, then, I carried it
to the quay, thinking that to be with other flowers in the fresh and
balmy air would do it good. I bathed its poor fading leaves in the clear
waters of the fountain, and then to dry it I placed it for a full
quarter of an hour in the sun. Dear little rose-tree! it never saw the
sun in the Cite any more than I did, for in our street it never descends
lower than the roof. At last I went back again, and I assure you, M.
Rodolph, that, thanks to these walks,