You had to eat a hard-cooked egg every two hours, and put spinach leaves on your loins.
Squint-eyed Augustine set up a hen-cackling when she heard this.

They had forgotten about her.

Gervaise lifted up the petticoat that was being ironed and found her rolling on the floor with laughter.

She jerked her upright.

What was she laughing about?
Was it right for her to be eavesdropping when older people were talking, the little goose?
Anyway it was time for her to deliver the laundry to a friend of Madame Lerat at Les Batignolles.