re are you going? going out?"

"I am going to lie in----It took me during the day. There was a great
dinner-party here----Oh! but it was hard work! Why do you come here? I
told you never to come; I don't want you to!"

"Because----I'll tell you----because just now I absolutely must have
forty francs. 'Pon my word, I must."

"Forty francs! Why I have just that for the midwife!"

"That's hard luck----look out! What do you want to do?" And he offered
his arm to assist her. "_Cristi!_ I'm going to have hard work to get 'em
all the same."

He had opened the carriage door.

"Where do you want him to take you?"

"To La Bourbe," said Germinie. And she slipped the forty francs into his
hand.

"No, no," said Jupillon.

"Oh! nonsense----there or somewhere else! Besides, I have seven francs
left."

The cab started away.

Jupillon stood for a moment motionless on the sidewalk, looking at the
two napoleons in his hand. Then he ran after the cab, stopped it, and
said to Germinie through the window:

"At least, I can go with you?"

"No, I am in too much pain, I'd rather be alone," she replied, writhing
on the cushions of the cab.

After an endless half hour, the cab stopped on Rue de Port-Royal, in
front of a black door surmounted by a violet lantern, which announced to
such medical students as happened to pass through the street that there
was that night, and at that moment, the curious and interesting
spectacle of a difficult labor in progress at La Maternite.

The driver descended from his box and rang. The concierge, assisted by a
female attendant, took Germinie's arms and led her up-stairs to one of
the four beds in the _salle d'accouchement_. Once in bed, her pains
became somewhat less excruciating. She looked about her, saw the other
beds, all empty, and, at the end of the immense room, a huge
country-house fireplace in which a bright fire was blazing, and in front
of which, hanging upon iron bars, sheets and cloths and bandages were
drying.

Half an hour later, Germinie gave birth to a little girl. Her bed was
moved into another room. She had been there several hours, lost in the
blissful after-delivery weakness which follows the frightful agony of
childbirth, happy and amazed to find that she was still alive, swimming
in a sea of blessed relief and deeply penetrated with the joy of having
created. Suddenly a loud cry: "I am dying!" caused her to turn her eyes
in the direction from which it came: she saw o