I have two hundred francs in hand. I have been
eight years in prison, I should like to enjoy myself a bit,--that won't
hurt anybody; work will come when the money is spent.' And so I began to
spend my two hundred francs. Ah, that was my mistake," added
Fleur-de-Marie, with a sigh. "I ought first to have got my work; but I
hadn't a soul on earth to advise me. At sixteen, to be thrown on the
city of Paris, as I was, one is so lonely; and what is done is done. I
have done wrong, and I have suffered for it. I began then to spend my
money: first, I bought flowers to put in my room,--I do love
flowers!--then I bought a gown, a nice shawl, and I took a walk in the
Bois de Boulogne, and I went to St. Germains, Vincennes, and other
country places. Oh, how I love the country!"

"With a lover by your side, my girl?" asked the Chourineur.

"Oh, _mon Dieu!_ no! I like to be my own mistress. I had my little
excursions with a friend who was in prison with me,--a good little girl
as can be: they call her Rigolette, because she is always laughing."

"Rigolette! Rigolette! I don't know her," said the Chourineur, who
appeared to be appealing to his memory.

"I didn't think you knew her. I am sure Rigolette was very well behaved
in prison, and always so gay and so industrious, she took out with her
when she left the prison at least four hundred francs that she had
earned. And then she is so particular!--you should see her! When I say I
had no one to advise me, I am wrong: I ought to have listened to her;
for, after having had a week's amusement together, she said to me, 'Now
we have had such a holiday, we ought to try for work, and not spend our
money in waste.' I, who was so happy in the fields and the woods,--it
was just at the end of spring, this year,--I answered, 'Oh, I must be
idle a little longer, and then I will work hard.' Since that time I have
not seen Rigolette, but I heard a few days since that she was living
near the Temple,--that she was a famous needlewoman, and earned at least
twenty-five sous a-day, and has a small workroom of her own; but now I
could not for the world see her again,--I should die with shame if I met
her."

"So, then, my poor girl," said Rodolph, "you spent your money in the
country,--you like the country, do you?"

"Like it? I love it! Oh, what would I not give to live there? Rigolette,
on the contrary, prefers Paris, and likes to walk on the Boulevards; but
she is so nice and so kind, she went int