She was six years old and promised to be a thorough good-for-nothing.

So as not to have her always under her feet her mother took her every morning to a little school in the Rue Polonceau kept by Mademoiselle Josse.

She fastened her playfellows' dresses together behind, she filled the school-mistress's snuff-box with ashes, and invented other tricks much less decent which could not be mentioned.

Twice Mademoiselle Josse expelled her and then took her back again so as not to lose the six francs a month.

Directly lessons were over Nana avenged herself for having been kept in by making an infernal noise under the porch and in the courtyard where the ironers, whose ears could not stand the racket, sent her to play.