t that I had only to ask for work and get it.
Ah! how I deceived myself! I went into a shop where they sell ready-made
linen, and asked for employment, and as I would not tell a story, I said
I had just left prison. They showed me the door, without making me any
answer. I begged they would give me a trial, and they pushed me into the
street as if I had been a thief. Then I remembered, too late, what
Rigolette had told me. Little by little I sold my small stock of clothes
and linen, and when all was gone they turned me out of my lodging. I had
not tasted food for two days; I did not know where to sleep. At this
moment I met the ogress and one of her old women who knew where I
lodged, and was always coming about me since I left prison. They told me
they would find me work, and I believed them. I went with them, so
exhausted for want of food that my senses were gone. They gave me brandy
to drink, and--and--here I am!" said the unhappy creature, hiding her
face in her hands.

"Have you lived a long time with the ogress, my poor girl?" asked
Rodolph, in accents of the deepest compassion.

"Six weeks, sir," replied Goualeuse, shuddering as she spoke.

"I see,--I see," said the Chourineur; "I know you now as well as if I
were your father and mother, and you had never left my lap. Well, well,
this is a confession indeed!"

"It makes you sad, my girl, to tell the story of your life," said
Rodolph.

"Alas! sir," replied Fleur-de-Marie, sorrowfully, "since I was born this
is the first time it ever happened to me to recall all these things at
once, and my tale is not a merry one."

"Well," said the Chourineur, ironically, "you are sorry, perhaps, that
you are not a kitchen-wench in a cook-shop, or a servant to some old
brutes who think of no one but themselves."

"Ah!" said Fleur-de-Marie, with a deep sigh, "to be quite happy, we must
be quite virtuous."

"Oh, what is your little head about now?" exclaimed the Chourineur, with
a loud burst of laughter. "Why not count your rosary in honour of your
father and mother, whom you never knew?"

"My father and mother abandoned me in the street like a puppy that is
one too many in the house; perhaps they had not enough to feed
themselves," said Goualeuse, with bitterness. "I want nothing of
them,--I complain of nothing,--but there are lots happier than mine."

"Yours! Why, what would you have? You are as handsome as a Venus, and
yet only sixteen and a half; you sing like a night