Yes, Madame Sidonie, as she was called since she became a widow, was a woman of a good family, having, it is said, a brother who was a minister, but that did not prevent her from being very bad." And she explained that she had made her acquaintance when she kept, on the Rue Saint-Honore, a little shop where they dealt in fruit and oil from Provence, she and her husband, when they came from Plassans, hoping to make their fortune in the city.

The husband died and was buried, and soon after Madame Sidonie had a little daughter, which she sent at once to the hospital, and never after even inquired for her, as she was "a heartless woman, cold as a protest and brutal as a sheriff's aid." A fault can be pardoned, but not ingratitude! Was not it true that, obliged to leave her shop as she was so heavily in debt, she had been received and cared for by Madame Foucart?
And when in her turn she herself had fallen into difficulties, she had never been able to obtain from Madame Sidonie, even the month's board she owed her, nor the fifteen francs she had once lent her.

To-day the "hateful thing" lived on the Rue de Faubourg-Poissonniere, where she had a little apartment of three rooms.

She pretended to be a cleaner and mender of lace, but she sold a good many other things.

Ah! yes! such a mother as that it was best to know nothing about! An hour later, Hubert was walking round the house where Madame Sidonie lived.