ell you,--of a great sack
being drawn along by two cats without tails!" and again she laughed
merrily.

"I would rather look at you, my pretty neighbour, than at all the fat
old women or tailless cats in Europe. I am so delighted to find you
already love me."

"I only tell you the truth; if I disliked you, I should speak just as
plainly. I cannot reproach myself with ever having deceived or flattered
any one; but, if a person pleases me, I tell them so directly."

Again interrupting the thread of her discourse, the grisette drew up
suddenly before the windows of a shop, saying, "Oh, do pray only look at
that pretty clock and those two handsome vases! I had already saved up
three francs and a half, and had put it in my money-box, to buy such a
set as that. In five or six years I might have been able to buy them."

"Saved up, do you say? Then, I suppose, you earn--"

"At least thirty sous a day,--sometimes forty; but I never reckon upon
more than thirty, which is the more prudent; and I regulate all my
expenses accordingly," said Rigolette, with an air as important as
though she was settling the financial budget.

"But with thirty sous a day, how do you manage to live?"

"Oh, bless you! that is easily reckoned. Shall I tell you how I manage,
neighbour? I fancy you are rather extravagant in your notions; so,
perhaps, it may serve as a lesson for you."

"Yes, pray do."

"Well, then, thirty sous a day make five and forty francs a month, do
they not?"

"Yes."

"Well, then, out of that I pay twelve francs for lodging; that leaves me
twenty-three francs for food, etc."

"Is it possible? Twenty-three francs for one month's food!"

"Yes, really, all that! Certainly, for such a person as myself, it does
seem an enormous sum; but then, you see, I deny myself nothing."

"Oh, you little glutton!"

"Ah! but then, remember, I include the food for both my birds in that
sum."

"Certainly it seems less exorbitant, when you come to reckon, for three
than for one; but just tell me how you manage day by day, that I may
profit by your good example."

"Well, then, be attentive, and I will go over the different things I
spend in it. First of all, one pound of bread, that costs four sous;
then two sous' worth of milk make six; four sous' worth of vegetables in
winter, or fruit and salad in summer,--I am very found of salad,
because, like vegetables, it is such a nice clean thing to prepare, and
does not soil the hands; the