sous left.
It was on foot, therefore, that I was compelled to return to Paris.

"Mme. Fortin received me with open arms. With me returned the hope
of recovering the hundred and odd francs which I owed her, and
which she had given up for lost. Moreover, she had excellent news
for me. M. Van Klopen had sent for me during my absence, requesting
me to call at his shop. Tired as I was, I went to see him at once.
I found him very much downcast by the poor prospects of business.
Still he was determined to go on, and offered to employ me, not as
work-woman, as heretofore, but to try on garments for customers, at
a salary of one hundred and twenty francs a month. I was not in a
position to be very particular. I accepted; and there I am still.

"Every morning, when I get to the shop, I take off this simple
costume, and I put on a sort of livery that belongs to M. Van Klopen,
--wide skirts, and a black silk dress.

"Then whenever a customer comes who wants a cloak, a mantle, or
some other 'wrapping,' I step up and put on the garment, that the
purchaser may see how it looks. I have to walk, to turn around,
sit down, etc. It is absurdly ridiculous, often humiliating; and
many a time, during the first days, I felt tempted to give back
to M. Van Klopen his black silk dress.

"But the conjectures of my friend the peace-officer were constantly
agitating my brain. Since I thought I had discovered a mystery in
my existence, I indulged in all sorts of fancies, and was momentarily
expecting some extraordinary occurrence, some compensation of destiny,
and I remained.

"But I was not yet at the end of my troubles."

Since she had been speaking of M. Van Klopen, Mlle. Lucienne seemed
to have lost her tone of haughty assurance and imperturbable
coolness; and it was with a look of mingled confusion and sadness
that she went on.

"What I was doing at Van Klopen's was exceedingly painful to me;
and yet he very soon asked me to do something more painful still.
Gradually Paris was filling up again. The hotels had re-opened;
foreigners were pouring in; and the Bois Boulogne was resuming
its wonted animation. Still but few orders came in, and those for
dresses of the utmost simplicity, of dark color and plain material,
on which it was hard to make twenty-five per cent profit. Van
Klopen was disconsolate. He kept speaking to me of the good old
days, when some of his customers spent as much as thirty thousand
francs a month for d