There was only a thin partition between us and the bureau in which the bargain was being concluded, and we could tell by the sharp click of the perruquier’s scissors that the purchase was being consummated. The light entered the shop obliquely, and through the thinly veiled window of the bureau we could see the shorn lamb grasp the pittance with eager hands, while she hastily adjusted her bonnet, and with a challenging look in the glass, murmured in a low but distinct voice, as if to herself, “but I am still pretty.”
“And so you are,” thought we, as we inwardly exclaimed, “may Heaven temper its winds to your condition, poor child!” and took up our small purchase, and followed her. There was something in her manner and her meagre gentility of dress, which told us that she was on an errand of self-sacrifice, and may the guardian angels of poverty forgive the curiosity which tracked their protegée to her holy of holies.
It was a long walk, but her pace never flagged. Starting from the Avenue de Marigny, threading rapidly the crowded pavements of the Faubourg Sainte Honoré, passing over the Champs Elysées with a single glance at the luxurious equipages thronging the avenue up the Rue de Chaillot, and through the dingy streets leading to Passy, she at length entered a house which appeared as though it had long been a victim of the Court of Chancery. Against the dust-ridden and blistered door-post we saw carelessly lounging a card, which seemed as though itself was growing sallow with long deferred hope, inscribed with the words “apartements meublés.” It was a shallow pretext, but we rang the bell and our summons was deliberately answered by a porteress, whose ancient limbs seemed grating with the rust of years and inaction. She was an antique gem, was this concierge, and we thought if everything in the establishment were en suite, there must be a very vegetative sort of life going on there. Her sabots were of the heaviest, her blue woollen stockings of the most darned variety possible, her linsey-woolsey petticoat of the curtest, reaching barely to her calf, which was of the stoutest; her serge apron of the bluest, her neckerchief of the yellowest, her cap of the loftiest—mounting guard over her face—and her nose of the shortest; but there was a beam of good nature on her broad, wrinkled face, and we felt conscience, the Nemesis of rascality, nudging us, as we thought what unfounded hopes we were raising in her bosom.
“You have apartments to let, I believe.”
“Yes, will monsieur condescend to enter?”
“Thank you (the Rubicon passed). On what floor are they?”
“Au troisième, monsieur, and they are very comfortable. We are quiet here, monsieur, although not far from the resort of fashion, but we do not claim to be of the beau monde. Alas! no, we are not people of fashion, although our last tenant was a gentleman of position, for he had been valet to a great Duke.”
Monsieur was overpowered with regret, but he was a professional man in search of a première, and was afraid the ascent of three pair of stairs would be too fatiguing to his patients. He was charmed with the air of quiet comfort around him (Heaven forgive the flattering falsehood!); but he saw that it was impossible. However, would madame allow him to rest, and procure him a little wine?
The old lady’s garrulity came to a painful check; but with native tact she merely expressed her regret, and replied that monsieur was perfectly welcome to rest as long as he pleased. She had a little grandchild in attendance upon a sick lodger au quatrième, who would be delighted to fetch monsieur some wine.
Monsieur was all gratitude, and now that the ice was broken, he ventured to ask if the young lady who had just entered was a locataire.
“Oh! mademoiselle Marie, yes, monsieur. Her mother is the sick lodger of whom I have spoken. She is sick to the death, but mademoiselle is a good girl, a brave girl, though Heaven only knows how the poor thing bears it. The Virgin must hear her prayers, and carries the poor child through her struggles.”
The wine had now arrived and assisted in mellowing our plot. Madame Justine would have a small glass (we did not fear its strength, and poured her out a tumbler), and it gave more freedom to her tongue.
“Stay, mon chou,” said she to her grandchild, “how is madame this evening?”
The little “cabbage” eyed the franc piece we gave her with a glance of intense satisfaction, and replied: “Madame is worse, grandmère. She is excited, too; oh! so excited with Mademoiselle Marie.”
“Is it so, poor child, and why is she so excited?”
“Only because mademoiselle has had her hair cut; but it is no shorter than mine.” The little “cabbage” was polled as close as a child in a Dutch picture).
We saw that the time had come for making a clean breast of it, so we detailed to Madame Justine what we had witnessed in the perruquier’s shop, and hoped that madame would point out any way in which a friend could serve her lodgers. Madame Justine had grown loquacious under the stimulus of our faithful ally, the Modoc, but she seemed rather suspicious of our motives, and it required some explanation to reassure her.
“Monsieur,” said she, “is very good, but mademoiselle and her mother are very proud. They would starve before they would receive charity from a stranger.’”
“Are they so proud that they would reject the sympathy of a friend? Is there no way of aiding them without wounding their self-respect?’
“They are dead to those who should receive their love, and they shrink from the pity of strangers. Listen, monsieur, and you shall know their history.” Justine then gave us the following narration.
Marie’s father was an only child, and of a good family, and was educated for a physician. He was sent to Paris to study his profession; and, like many other young men under similar circumstances, he became gay in his living. “But,”