has many a serviceable virtue of her own, shall be debarred from her
share in this world's cakes and ale?

_Vive la grisette_! Let us think and speak no evil of her. "Elle ne
tient au vice que par un rayon, et s'en éloigne par les mille autres
points de la circonference sociale." The world sees only her follies,
and sees them at first sight; her good qualities lie hidden in the
shade. Is she not busy as a bee, joyous as a lark, helpful, pitiful,
unselfish, industrious, contented? How often has she not slipped her
last coin into the alms-box at the hospital gate, and gone supperless to
bed? How often sat up all night, after a long day's toil in a crowded
work-room, to nurse Victorine in the fever? How often pawned her Sunday
gown and shawl, to redeem that coat without which Adolphe cannot appear
before the examiners to-morrow morning? Granted, if you will, that she
has an insatiable appetite for sweets, cigarettes, and theatrical
admissions--shall she not be welcome to her tastes? And is it her fault
if her capacity in the way of miscellaneous refreshments partakes of the
nature of the miraculous--somewhat to the inconvenience of Adolphe, who
has overspent his allowance? Supposing even that she may now and then
indulge (among friends) in a very modified can-can at the
Chaumière--what does that prove, except that her heels are as light as
her heart, and that her early education has been somewhat neglected?

But I am writing of a world that has vanished as completely as the lost
Pleiad. The Quartier Latin of my time is no more. The Chaumière is no
more. The grisette is fast dying out. Of the Rue de la Harpe not a
recognisable feature is left. The old Place St. Michel, the fountain,
the Theatre du Panthéon, are gone as if they had never been. Whole
streets, I might say whole parishes, have been swept away--whole
chapters of mediæval history erased for ever.