Page:A chambermaid's diary.djvu/68

 The intonation of her spasmodic utterances, and her winks, clearly revealed to me her exact situation in Captain Mauger's house.

"Why, you know, a man all alone, and who still has ideas. And besides, there is work to do all the same. And we are going to hire a boy to assist."

This Rose is lucky. I, too, have often dreamed of entering an old man's service. It is disgusting. But at least one is tranquil, and has a future.

We traverse the entire district. Oh! indeed, it is not pretty. It in no way resembles the Boulevard Malesherbes. Dirty, narrow, winding streets, and houses that stand neither square or straight,—dark houses, of old, rotten wood, with high, tottering gables, and bulging stories that project one past the other, in the olden fashion. The people who pass are ugly, ugly, and I have not seen a single handsome fellow. The industry of the neighborhood is the manufacture of list-shoes. Most of the shoemakers, having been unable to deliver a week's product at the factory, are still at work. And behind the window-panes I see poor sickly faces, bent backs, and black hands hammering leather soles.

That adds still further to the dismal sadness of the place. It seems like a prison.

But here is the haberdasher, who, standing at her threshold, smiles at us and bows.