Get to sleep if you can, and your turn will come when I can no longer keep up." Then addressing her daughter, she resumed: "And you would do well, darling, not to excite yourself too much if you wish to keep your head clear." Raymonde smiled and gave her mother a reproachful glance: "Mamma, mamma, why do you say that?
Am I not sensible ?" she asked.
Doubtless she was not boasting, for, despite her youthful, thoughtless air, the air of one who simply feels happy in living, there appeared in her grey eyes an expression of firm resolution, a resolution to shape her life for herself.
"It is true," the mother confessed with a little confusion, "this little girl is at times more sensible than I am myself.

Come, pass me the cutlet--it is welcome, I assure you.

Lord! how hungry I was!" The meal continued, enlivened by the constant laughter of Madame Desagneaux and Raymonde.

The latter was very animated, and her face, which was already growing somewhat yellow through long pining for a suitor, again assumed the rosy bloom of twenty.

They had to eat very fast, for only ten minutes now remained to them.