assure you that all your originals so far have a touch of the
Southerner about them."

"Let us go this way," said Bixiou pointing to the rue Saint-Marc.

"Do you want to show me something else?"

"Yes; you shall see the usuress of rats, marcheuses and great ladies,
--a woman who possesses more terrible secrets than there are gowns
hanging in her window," said Bixiou.

And he showed Gazonal one of those untidy shops which made an ugly
stain in the midst of the dazzling show-windows of modern retail
commerce. This shop had a front painted in 1820, which some bankrupt
had doubtless left in a dilapidated condition. The color had
disappeared beneath a double coating of dirt, the result of usage, and
a thick layer of dust; the window-panes were filthy, the door-knob
turned of itself, as door-knobs do in all places where people go out
more quickly than they enter.

"What do you say of _that_? First cousin to Death, isn't she?" said Leon
in Gazonal's ear, showing him, at the desk, a terrible individual.
"Well, she calls herself Madame Nourrisson."

"Madame, how much is this guipure?" asked the manufacturer, intending
to compete in liveliness with the two artists.

"To you, monsieur, who come from the country, it will be only three
hundred francs," she replied. Then, remarking in his manner a sort of
eagerness peculiar to Southerners, she added, in a grieved tone, "It