QUITE ALONE.

BOOK THE FIRST: CHILDHOOD.

CHAPTER XXIX. LILY IS ACTUALLY AT HOME.

ONCE more Lily traversed the up-hill pavement,
and marvelled at the great rolling turbulent
gutters in the roadways: gutters which in those
days often bore on their inky bosoms the carcases
of defunct cats and dogs, that rolled past, swift
and supine, towards the Infinite reserved for the
beasts.

Once more she saw the clumsy oil-lamps slung
on ropes across the streets, and smelt the faint
odour of the melons and peaches, and the quicker
aroma of the grapes from the fruiterers' shops.
The way was by back streets, where there were
few brilliant shops, full of gold and silver and
jewels, and rich dresses, and beautiful pictures.
But to the timid little hermit, just escaped from
her thraldom, the narrow dirty streets of old
Paris were ineffably charming. The great dishes
full of wet partly-cooked spinach, like green
mortar, in the greengrocers' shops; the giant
pumpkins at the doors, some cleft in twain, and
disclosing a voluptuous mine of golden squash
and seedfulness within, that looked like the
heads of grim Paynim warriors stricken off by
the two-handed swords of doughty Crusaders;
the eggs boiled in cochineal (as Madame Prudence
explained) to make their shells red: "c'est pour
distraire l'Å“il, mon enfant;" the long strings of
dumpy little sausages, the shapely pigs' feet
cunningly truffled, as though they had corns
defiant of the skilfullest chiropodist; the other
wonderful preparations of pork at the charcutiers';
the butchers' shops, with their marble dressers
and gilt iron railings, and their scraggy but lively
coloured show of meat; the glaring signboards;
the dazzling show of pewter pitchers in the
wineshops; the ticket-porters dozing on their trucks,
with their shirt-collars open, disclosing their
shaggy, vein-corrugated necks; the throng of
little boy soldiers with vacant faces and red legs;
of priests in shovel-hats; of policemen with
swords and cocked-hats; of moustached old
women, very like the two Fates who came to
card wool at the Pension, trolling monstrous
barrows full of fruit or vegetables; the water-
carriers with their pails; the alert little work-
women with their trim white caps whisking along
with their skirts thrown over one arm; the
wonderful poodle-dogs with tufted tails and
curling manes, like pacific lions of a smaller
growth; the liquorice-water seller with his
pagoda at his back hung with bells and banners,
and his clean napkin and arsenal of bright tin
mugs; the woman who sold the jumbles, and
the man who sold metal taps; the wandering
glazier with his cry of "Vitrier-e-e-e-er!" the
old clothesman, no Jew he, but a stout Christian,
who looked as though he had spent a good many
years travelling in Galilee, and had begun to
waver in his faith somewhat, crying, "Vieux
habits, vieux galons!" the very beggars and
blackguard little boys in torn blue blouses, who
splashed in the gutters, or made faces behind the
backs of the cocked-hatted policemen; all had
charms for Lily. She could not help observing
that most of the surrounding objects
—animate as well as inanimate—were exceedingly
dirty, and that the atmosphere was heavily
laden with tobacco-smoke; but the entire
spectacle was charming to her, nevertheless.

By-and-by, in the wane of the afternoon (for
they had walked leisurely, and Madame Prudence
had met several acquaintances, the majority
bearing large baskets from which the stalks of
vegetables protruded, or the heads of fowls
dangled, and who were manifestly of the culinary
calling), they crossed the great roaring Boulevard
—which the housekeeper told Lily was an
ocean of wickedness, and to be avoided, save on
feast-days, when the good people came out as
well as the bad—and entered a maze of streets
much wider and cleaner, but much quieter.
There were few shops, but many white walls,
seeming to stretch onward for miles, and
relieved only by jalousied windows and heavy
portes cochères. Lily's heart sank within her.
All looked older; but then all was as still and
as gloomy as the stark and sepulchral suburb of
Saint Philippe du Roule.

"Does the good lady—does Madame de
Kergolay—keep a Pension?" she asked, nervously.

Madame Prudence could feel the little arm
quivering within her own, and patted it again,
reassuringly.

"Courage, my child!" she said, with a merry
laugh. "Why, we have not the boldness of a
guinea-pig. We have done with Pensions for
good. No more classes, no more haricots, no
more tasks and penitences, no more Marcassins!
A Pension, my faith! Madame la Baronne de