"Look at Elina--she don't laugh, and she don't keep her tongue clacking; so she gets ahead with her skirt."

"Oh! Elina's preoccupied; she's been very pensive for some time; that's why she don't talk."

"I didn't suppose I was forbidden to think," rejoined little Elina gravely, and without raising her eyes.

"Of course not; thoughts are free, and they use their freedom! they're very lucky, our thoughts are; they can travel, they can run about the fields and go into whatever company they choose; while we have to sit here, planted on our chairs, and sew all day long! G.o.d! what fun! When shall I have a million a year, so that I can coddle myself and sleep and eat meringues all day? Oh! meringues--they're a high-toned delicacy, I tell you!"

"What are they made of?" asked stout Julienne, looking at Laura, who replied with the utmost seriousness:

"Preserved snails. The next time you go into a confectioner's, ask him for a snail meringue, and see how good it is!"

"Come, come, mesdemoiselles, we mustn't talk so much. Madame will soon be back, and this ball dress don't get on at all; and, you know, we still have two wedding dresses to finish this week."

"Two wedding dresses! Everybody seems to be getting married! I don't know why n.o.body marries me;--and you, Julienne, wouldn't you like to get married?"

"Me? oh, no, mademoiselle! on the contrary, I'd hate it."

"You would? Why, pray?"

"Because my cousin told me that when you're married you can't sleep alone any more; and I like to kick my legs about in bed, and I know it would bother me to have someone with me."

"Oh! what a simpleton you are, big Julienne! you sleep with your husband, and that don't prevent your kicking your legs about--not by any means!"

"How do you know that, Mamzelle Laura? Are you married?"

Mademoiselle Laura contented herself with an impatient gesture, muttering:

"Do let me finish; you disturb me when I am trying to make Turkish points. Oh! what a sigh Elina just gave! Haven't you finished moving, young dreamer?"

"Yes, mademoiselle; it was all done this morning."

"Ah! that's why you came later than usual?"

"I spoke to Mademoiselle Frotard about it."

"Who moved you? Was it Sans-Cravate, the Lovelace of the cooks of the neighborhood?"

"No, mademoiselle."

"Then it must have been his mate--Jean Ficelle. He's a very clever youth. I sent him once to carry a letter to someone, on important business, and I saw that he was full of intelligence.--Pa.s.s me the Scotch thread, Sophie."

"Oh! mesdemoiselles, you know very well that Elina has a messenger she always patronizes--one Paul, who puts on airs when we pa.s.s, which I consider altogether too cheeky; I propose to tell that young man of the people what I think of him some fine day!"

"Isn't a messenger as good as other men?" muttered little Elina, angrily. "Why hasn't he the right to look at us?"

"As good as other men! a messenger!" cried a young woman with an affected manner, a mocking smile, and a shrill voice; "fellows who live on street corners or in wine shops! Great G.o.d! if one of them should presume to stare at me very long, I'd soon show him his place."

"What nonsense!" said stout Julienne; "they're always in their place!"

"You see, I haven't any low tastes. I wouldn't go out with a man who didn't have gloves and trouser-straps!"

"Oho! she reminds me of that tall Helene who used to work here, and had the bra.s.s to say to us: 'I don't go with any men but those that have red morocco boot tops; I don't have anything to say to a man who has black leather ones, because they don't go with patent-leather boots.'"

"I didn't know that honest men were canaille," retorted Elina, flushing with anger; "I thought no one was ever called by that name but villains and rascals."

"Hallo! here's Elina showing fight!" cried Laura; "_dame!_ you attacked her on a sensitive spot. Bah! I've broken my needle; that's the fifth one to-day. That makes Euphemie laugh. It's very funny, ain't it?"

"Ha! ha! ha! five needles [_aiguilles_]! I thought she said five eels [_anguilles_]!"

"Oh! my dear, eels don't break; you can do whatever you please with eels--even to making a _matelote_."

"I know a song about 'em," said Julienne, "where it's said that eels are like young girls."

"The deuce! Potage has made me p.r.i.c.k myself," rejoined Mademoiselle Laura; "she refers to something they sing at the Opera-Comique:

"'Eels and young girls alike, All's fish that comes to my net.'

There you have it; I heard it in _Mazaniello;_ and that's a mighty fine opera, I tell you! I saw it at a theatre in the suburbs, where they had three supers to represent the Neapolitan populace in revolt; one of the three was a little old man of fifty or sixty, with a red cap, who kept running into the wings to turn up a lamp that threatened to go out, and finally took the lamp down altogether and held it in his hands during the grand final chorus, of which the words were:

"'Death, death to the tyrants!'

I believe. And when he was singing, as he was anxious to put spirit into it, he waved the lamp as if he was threatening the audience, so it seemed as if he intended to kill the tyrants with lamp oil. At last, right in the middle of the chorus, one of the three musicians who composed the orchestra stood up and shouted, as mad as you please: '_Sacredie!_ Monsieur Fiston, don't hold your arm out so far; you're throwing oil on me! My coat's all spotted! Is it the fashion now to sing in opera with a lamp in your hand?'--Mon Dieu! I never laughed so much in all my life!"

"What a lucky creature that Laura is! she goes to the theatre very often."

"Oh! I used to go much oftener. I had an acquaintance who stuffed me with tickets and all sorts of delicacies."

"A gentleman?"

"To be sure--and a very pretty fellow he was. I never saw a man wear his cravat so jauntily; he used to tie it in the most enticing rosette----"

"Mademoiselle Laura, you're beginning to say improper things again!"

"Pshaw! Mademoiselle Frotard, is there any law against my knowing a good-looking man? I believe I have a right to have known more than one; I'm twenty-four; I don't make any secret of my age, and I don't play the prude. I certainly don't claim to be a perfect innocent----"

"I'd like to see those boxes with salons; I shan't be happy till I've been in one."

"You must get your lover to take you, some day when he's in funds."

"My lover's never in funds; I don't know what he does with his money; he wouldn't treat me to a gla.s.s of cider! He pretends that he puts every sou in the savings bank against the time we get married."

"Believe that and drink water, my poor Sophie!--Pins, please."

"The large scissors."

"Here they are."

"However, he took me to the theatre once, because somebody'd given him the tickets. That day, I remember, we dined in my room, on very little, and I was very hungry at the theatre; it was a theatre on the boulevard, and the play was a long melodrama. At half-past eleven we still had four acts to see. But in the play, where the scene was a farmhouse, and peasants coming home from work, all of a sudden they brought on a big wooden bowl and went to eating cabbage soup. It was real cabbage soup, I can tell you, and it was smoking hot and smelt awful good. Imagine the effect it produced on us, hungry as we were!--'I've a good mind to apply at once to be admitted to the chorus,' I says to Oscar; but he had already got up and opened the door of the box, where we were all alone, and called the opener; when she came, I heard him say: 'Madame, my wife's in a situation where it ain't safe to refuse her anything--a situation in which women are subject to the strangest whims and the most extraordinary desires; you understand what I mean--she's enceinte. Well, after a dinner fit for the angels, at Very's, here she is acting like a madwoman because she smells the cabbage soup they're eating on the stage. She wants some of it, says she must have it, and threatens me with a plate of soup as offspring if I don't satisfy her craving. Isn't there some way of doing it, madame? there's no sacrifice I'm not capable of making to prevent my wife's giving me a cabbage for a son.'--The opener, hoping to be handsomely paid, replied: 'Never fear, monsieur; I'll just go down and tell 'em at the office, and they'll send word on to the stage; your wife shall have some cabbage soup, I promise you.'--'A thousand thanks, madame,' says Oscar. 'Please go and ask for a lot of it at once, for in her present condition, when we dine at a restaurant, my wife always eats soup enough for four, and it doesn't do her a bit of harm.'--The box opener went off, and Oscar came back to his seat. You can judge whether I wanted to laugh. 'Keep quiet,' says my lover, 'and try to look as if you were in the condition I said you were; we are going to sup at the expense of the management; it won't hurt them, and it will give us great pleasure.'--And, sure enough, in a few minutes the opener came into the box with a pretty little soup tureen, a deep plate, and a spoon, which she offered me with a most amiable smile.--'Madame shall have all she wants,' she says; 'they've filled the tureen, so that madame can satisfy her craving.'--'You are a thousand times too good,' says Oscar; 'but I hope that you will be satisfied with me, too.'--With that, the woman bows to the ground, and goes off, shutting the door behind her. No sooner were we alone, than Oscar filled the plate for me, but kept the spoon and began to gulp down all that was left in the tureen; as there was only one spoon, I had to wait till he'd finished before I could eat my plateful; but the soup was fine, I a.s.sure you. When we had finished, Oscar called the box opener again, and gave her the tureen and plate and spoon.--'Would you believe that my wife would eat it all!' he says. 'It's incredible what feats a woman in her condition will perform!'--The opener said that she was delighted that I had satisfied my craving, and off she went again with the things we had given back to her. As soon as she was out of sight, my lover says to me: 'Put on your hat and shawl, and be all ready to go.'--Then he looked out in the corridor, but was flabbergasted to see our box opener sitting there in her chair; she had given the things to a lemonade boy to carry back to the stage. Oscar swore between his teeth, but as he was one of the kind that's never embarra.s.sed, he says: 'Wait till the end of the next act.'--The act ended very soon; then he motioned to me to get up, I took his arm, and we went out of the box. I leaned on him as if it was very hard for me to walk. As we pa.s.sed the opener, Oscar says to her: 'What do you suppose it is now, madame? this wife of mine insists on having an ice. Gad! what strange ideas Nature has!'--'But, monsieur, you could just as well have had it brought to your box.'--'True, but I think it won't do my wife any harm to have a breath of air. Keep our seats for us, madame; is it a long intermission?'--'Not very, monsieur.'--'Come, then, my dear love; let's make haste, for I'm very much interested in the play, and I don't want to lose a scene. Be sure and keep our box for us, madame.'--With that, Oscar pulled me along, and we left the theatre, with not the slightest desire to return. The box opener didn't even get the price of the cricket she had pushed under my feet. And that's the only time my lover ever treated me."