much as you please, but not to be seen, hein?" One of the women of the house spoke sharply to the crowd above.
"It's not me! It's not me!" came a score of whispers; "it's Nourrice!"
"Nourrice! For the love of—"
"Eh, poor devil! But let her come, Olympia," came in antistrophe from the crowd on the steps. "She'll soon go away; she never stays long."
"Here, Nourrice! here!"
"By me, Nourrice!"
"Here's a nice place for you, Nourrice!"
The kind-hearted women moved this way and that to find a place for her on the steps.
Two long, thin, naked, yellow feet, caked with mud, came down the steps, feeling their way over the carpet, and an old woman stiffly sat in the corner offered, tucking her ragged, soiled skirt about her, and drawing her piece of shawl over her breast. Her arms were bare, and the elbow-joints projected sharply. Her kerchief seemed to have worn in holes on her head; the gray wool stuck out everywhere, like moss from an old mattress. She had drifted in from the
