the eldest of four girls whose
parents' home had been turned into a perfect hell, full of shameful
wretchedness and unacknowledgable poverty, through this abominable
incumbrance. Valerie, who was good-looking and ambitious, was lucky
enough, however, to marry that handsome, honest, and hard-working
fellow, Morange, although she was quite without a dowry; and, this
accomplished, she indulged in the dream of climbing a little higher up
the social ladder, and freeing herself from the loathsome world of petty
clerkdom by making the son whom she hoped to have either an advocate or
a doctor. Unfortunately the much-desired child proved to be a girl; and
Valerie trembled, fearful of finding herself at last with four daughters
on her hands, just as her mother had. Her dream thereupon changed, and
she resolved to incite her husband onward to the highest posts, so that
she might ultimately give her daughter a large dowry, and by this means
gain that admittance to superior spheres which she so eagerly desired.
Her husband, who was weak and extremely fond of her, ended by sharing
her ambition, ever revolving schemes of pride and conquest for her
benefit. But he had now been eight years at the Beauchene works, and
he still earned but five thousand francs a year. This drove him and his
wife to despair. Assuredly it was not at Beauchene's that he would ever
make his fortune.

"You see!" he exclaimed, after going a couple of hundred yards with
Mathieu along the Boulevard de Grenelle, "it is that new house yonder at
the street corner. It has a stylish appearance, eh?"

Mathieu then perceived a lofty modern pile, ornamented with balconies
and sculpture work, which looked quite out of place among the poor
little houses predominating in the district.

"Why, it is a palace!" he exclaimed, in order to please Morange, who
thereupon drew himself up quite proudly.

"You will see the staircase, my dear fellow! Our place, you know, is on
the fifth floor. But that is of no consequence with such a staircase, so
easy, so soft, that one climbs it almost without knowing."

Thereupon Morange showed his guest into the vestibule as if he were
ushering him into a temple. The stucco walls gleamed brightly; there was
a carpet on the stairs, and colored glass in the windows. And when, on
reaching the fifth story, the cashier opened the door with his latchkey,
he repeated, with an air of delight: "You will see, you will see!"

Valerie and Reine must have