her visit to the Seguins, might bring some
good influence to bear on them.

He rose from his chair and was about to retire, when the attack which
had all along threatened him burst forth. The children, unsuspectedly
rising from their chairs, had concerted together with a glance, and
now they opened their campaign. The worthy doctor all at once found the
twins upon his shoulders, while the younger boy clasped him round the
waist and the little girl clung to his legs.

"Puff! puff! do the railway train, do the railway train, please do."

They pushed and shook him, amid peal after peal of flute-like laughter,
while their father and mother rushed to his assistance, scolding and
angry. But he calmed the parents by saying: "Let them be! they are
simply wishing me good day. And besides, I must bear with them, you
know, since, as our friend Beauchene says, it is a little bit my fault
if they are in the world. What charms me with your children is that they
enjoy such good health, just like their mother. For the present, at all
events, one can ask nothing more of them."

When he had set them down on the floor, and given each a smacking kiss,
he took hold of Marianne's hands and said to her that everything was
going on beautifully, and that he was very pleased. Then he went off,
escorted to the front door by Mathieu, the pair of them jesting and
laughing gayly.

Directly after the midday meal Mathieu wished to go out, in order that
Marianne might profit by the bright sunshine. The children had been
dressed in readiness before sitting down to table, and it was scarcely
more than one o'clock when the family turned the corner of the Rue de la
Federation and found itself upon the quays.

This portion of Grenelle, lying between the Champ de Mars and the
densely populated streets of the centre of the district, has an aspect
all its own, characterized by vast bare expanses, and long and almost
deserted streets running at right angles and fringed by factories with
lofty, interminable gray walls. During work-hours nobody passes along
these streets, and on raising one's head one sees only lofty chimneys
belching forth thick coal smoke above the roofs of big buildings with
dusty window panes. And if any large cart entrance happens to be open
one may espy deep yards crowded with drays and full of acrid vapor. The
only sounds are the strident puffs of jets of steam, the dull rumbling
of machinery, and the sudden rattle of ironwork lower