y knew
she hadn't a sou, and, besides, was one of their class.

Fouchette was a shining example of what environment can make of any
human being, taken sufficiently young and having no vacation.

Up to this particular morning Fouchette had accepted her position in
life philosophically as a necessary condition, and with no more
consideration of the high and mighty of this world than the high and
mighty had for her. Slowly and by insensible degrees, since she was
too young to mark the phenomena in any case, she had been forged and
hammered into a living piece of moral obliquity,--and yet the very
first contact with an innocent mind and kindly sympathy awoke in her
childish breast a subtle consciousness that something was wrong.

She fell asleep later, worn out with toil and sore from bruises, her
thin arm flung across Tartar's neck, to dream of a plump young face, a
pair of big, dark, soulful eyes that searched and found her heart. The
noise of the revelling robbers above her faded into one sweet, deep,
mellow voice that was music to her ears. And the powerful odors that
impregnated the atmosphere of the cellar and rendered it foul to
suffocation--dampness and dog and dregs of wine, and garlic and
decaying vegetables--became the languorous breath of June flowers.

Ah! the beautiful young lady! The beautiful flowers!

Their perfume seemed to choke her, like the deadly tuberoses piled
upon a coffin.

She tried to cry out, but her mouth was crowded full of something, and
she awoke to find herself in the brutal hands of some one in the
darkness. She kicked and scratched and struggled in vain, to be
quickly vanquished by a brutish blow.

Tartar! Tartar!

Oh, if Tartar were only there!

When she came to herself she was conscious of being carried in her own
basket on the back of one who stepped heavily and somewhat uncertainly
along the road.

She was doubled up like a half-shut jack-knife, her feet and head
uppermost, and had great difficulty in breathing by reason of her
cramped position and the ill-smelling rags with which she was covered.
Besides which, she felt sick from the cruel blow in her stomach.

Yet her senses were keenly alert.

She was well aware who had her; for the man gave out his
characteristic grunt with every misstep, and there was no one else in
the world likely to do her serious physical injury.

She knew that it was still dark, both from the way the man walked and
from the cool dampness of