rendered her voice rough and hoarse, and given a bluish tinge to her
skin. Sedentary life had made her extremely bulky, and her head was
thrown backwards by the exuberance of her bosom. She had never been
willing to renounce the fashions of her younger days, but still wore
the flowered gown, the yellow kerchief, and turban-like head-gear of
the classic fish-wife, besides retaining the latter's loud voice and
rapidity of gesture as she stood with her hands on her hips, shouting
out the whole abusive vocabulary of her calling.

She looked back regretfully to the old Marche des Innocents, which the
new central markets had supplanted. She would talk of the ancient rights
of the market "ladies," and mingle stories of fisticuffs exchanged with
the police with reminiscences of the visits she had paid the Court in
the time of Charles X and Louis Philippe, dressed in silk, and carrying
a bouquet of flowers in her hand. Old Mother Mehudin, as she was now
generally called, had for a long time been the banner-bearer of the
Sisterhood of the Virgin at St. Leu. She would relate that in the
processions in the church there she had worn a dress and cap of tulle
trimmed with satin ribbons, whilst holding aloft in her puffy fingers
the gilded staff of the richly-fringed silk standard on which the figure
of the Holy Mother was embroidered.

According to the gossip of the neighbourhood, the old woman had made a
fairly substantial fortune, though the only signs of it were the massive
gold ornaments with which she loaded her neck and arms and bosom on
important occasions. Her two daughters got on badly together as they
grew up. The younger one, Claire, an idle, fair-complexioned girl,
complained of the ill-treatment which she received from her sister
Louise, protesting, in her languid voice, that she could never submit to
be the other's servant. As they would certainly have ended by coming