u?"

"Neither kind nor unkind. I was about eleven years old, I think, when my
mother went off with a soldier. My father, who was a day-labourer,
brought home a mistress with him into our garret, and two boys she
had,--one six, and the other my own age. She was a barrow-woman. She
went on pretty well at first, but after a time, whilst she was out with
her fruit, a fish-woman used to come and drink with my father, and this
the apple-woman found out. Then, from this time, every evening, we had
such battles and rows in the house that I and the two boys were half
dead with fright. We all three slept together, for we had but one room.
One day,--it was her birthday, Sainte Madeleine's fete,--and she scolded
him because he had not congratulated her on it. From one word another
arose, and my father concluded by breaking her head with the handle of
the broom. I really thought he had killed her. She fell like a lump of
lead, but _la mere_ Madeleine was hard-lived, and hard-headed also.
After that she returned my father with interest all the blows he had
given her, and once bit him so savagely in the hand that the piece of
flesh remained between her teeth. I must say that these contests were
what we may call the _grandes eaux_ at Versailles. On common and
working-days the skirmishes were of a lighter sort,--there were
bruises, but no blood."

"Was this woman unkind to you?"

"Mere Madeleine? No; on the contrary. She was a little hasty, but,
otherwise, a good sort of woman enough. But at last my father got tired,
and left her and the little furniture we had. He came out of Burgundy,
and most probably returned to his own country. I was fifteen or sixteen
at this time."

"And were you still with the old mistress of your father?"

"Where else should I be? Then she took up with a tiler, who came to
lodge with us. Of the two boys of Mere Madeleine, one, the eldest, was
drowned at the Ile des Cygnes, and the other went apprentice to a
carpenter."

"And what did you do with this woman?"

"Oh, I helped to draw her barrow, made the soup, and carried her man his
dinner; and when he came home drunk, which happened oftener than was his
turn, I helped Mere Madeleine to keep him in order, for we still lived
in the same apartment. He was as vicious as a sandy-haired donkey, when
he was tipsy, and tried to kill us. Once, if we had not snatched his axe
from him, he would certainly have murdered us both. Mere Madeleine had a
cut on the shoul