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"No, you may be sure of that," answered Nana coolly. "I'm looking at nothing I'm seeing how hot it is. It's enough to make anyone, having to run like that." It was a stifling hot morning. The workgirls had drawn down the Venetian blinds, between which they could spy out into the street; and they had at last begun working on either side of the table, at the upper end of which sat Madame Lerat.
"Not quite so well, poor darling, since I weaned him. I had to wean him, Monsieur Mouillard, because I have gone back to my old trade." "Dressmaking?" "Yes, on my own account this time. I have taken the flat opposite to ours, on the same floor. Plumet makes frames, while I make gowns. I have already three workgirls, and enough customers to give me a start.
She told one girl her work was sloppy and made her do the flower over. Then she stalked out as stiffly as she had come in. The complaining and low laughter began again. "Really, young ladies!" said Madame Lerat, trying to look more severe than ever. "You will force me to take measures." The workgirls paid no attention to her. They were not afraid of her.
"As for horsehair, the very best is not pure. You can judge what the inferior quality is, from the workgirls calling it vitriol hair, because it is the refuse or clippings from goats and swine, washed in vitriol, boiled in dyes, etc., to burn and disguise such foreign bodies as straw. thorns, splinters, and even bits of skin, not worth picking out.
The two windows opened so wide that without leaving the work-table the girls could see the people walking past on the pavement over the way. Madame Lerat arrived the first, in view of setting an example. Then for a quarter of an hour the door swayed to and fro, and all the workgirls scrambled in, perspiring with tumbled hair. One July morning Nana arrived the last, as very often happened.
In the intense heat, when through the drawn blinds fruit-sellers could be heard in the street, crying their mirabelles and Queen Claudes, the workgirls slept heavily, their heads on the table. Or perhaps Malvina would go and ask Mademoiselle Le Mire for a copy of the 'Journal pour Tous, and read aloud to the others. But little Chebe did not care for the novels.
Out of the profits on the Persian robes she supported a sister's family of three children, she "helped" a worthless brother, and overflowed in help even to her workgirls, but that didn't weigh with me in those youthfully-narrow times.
In the intense heat, when through the drawn blinds fruit-sellers could be heard in the street, crying their mirabelles and Queen Claudes, the workgirls slept heavily, their heads on the table. Or perhaps Malvina would go and ask Mademoiselle Le Mire for a copy of the 'Journal pour Tous, and read aloud to the others. But little Chebe did not care for the novels.
Florine, informed of her departure, but detained a portion of the day in attendance on Mdlle. de Cardoville preferred waiting for night to perform the new orders she had asked and received, since she had communicated by letter the contents of Mother Bunch's journal. Certain not to be surprised, she entered the workgirls' chamber, as soon as the night was come.
The narrow footway was bordered by little gardens, which, with their wooden palings and well-kept shrubs, gave to the place an air of quaint and sober rusticity; and even as I entered, a bevy of workgirls, with gaily-colored blouses and hair aflame in the sunlight, brightened up the quiet background like the wild flowers that spangle a summer hedgerow.
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