This hoard that only got their faces washed when it rained were in all shapes and sizes, fat, thin, big and barely out of the cradle.
Nana reigned supreme over this host of urchins; she ordered about girls twice her own size, and only deigned to relinquish a little of her power in favor of Pauline and Victor, intimate confidants who enforced her commands.

This precious chit was for ever wanting to play at being mamma, undressing the smallest ones to dress them again, insisting on examining the others all over, messing them about and exercising the capricious despotism of a grown-up person with a vicious disposition.
Under her leadership they got up tricks for which they should have been well spanked.

The troop paddled in the colored water from the dyer's and emerged from it with legs stained blue or red as high as the knees; then off it flew to the locksmith's where it purloined nails and filings and started off again to alight in the midst of the carpenter's shavings, enormous heaps of shavings, which delighted it immensely and in which it rolled head over heels exposing their behinds.
The courtyard was her kingdom.

It echoed with the clatter of little shoes as they stampeded back and forth with piercing cries.

On some days the courtyard was too small for them and the troop would dash down into the cellar, race up a staircase, run along a corridor, then dash up another staircase and follow another corridor for hours.