Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1893-11-24
ASTORY OF BLOOD.
CHAPTER III. CONTINUED.
BY NJ. Z. BRADDoN.

told her she might walk miles and get moth
ing SO cheap in all Paris; so she took heart
and hired the apartment for month GER
tain, paying the fifth of her golden pieces.
of which she had spent Just four upon the
road, as an instalment of the rent And
then, still directed by her stout friend she
went to cTenerie round the corner, and
bought some milk and rolls and little
cheese for supper; and the sister sat down
In their new home, SO bare of many things
essential for comfort, and laughed and cried
over their first meal in Paris. Kathleen was
almost hysterical with fatigue and excite
ment. All the way they had come, even in
the midst of her girlish gladness, she had
been haunted by fears of pursuit The
Reverend Mother would send the gardener
after her, and lave her taken back and shut
up in the sun-baked room where the rats
lived.
'But now we are safe" she said, with her
head on her sisters shoulder, and Roses
arm round her, 1--WE are safe in Paris; and
If Reverend Mother sends after us, We'll go
TO the Emperor and ask him to take care of
us. We are his subjects now." This was
in '62, when the Empire was in its glory,
and there was sense of power and splen-
dor in the third NapoleOn's dominion over
this beautiful modern Babylon, such as
must have been felt in Rome under the po-
little sway of Augustus. These girls felt as
If they were in fortress now they were
within the charmed circle of imperial mag
nificencc.
Years of struggle and poverty and indus
try and self-denial came after that happy
evening when the girls sat in the twilight,
dreaming of bright future; but though the
training was severe, it was perhaps, the best
and noblest school in which humanity can
be educated. The sisters were never UNI
happy, for they were together, and they
were free. Rose was sister, mother, guar
dian, all the world of love and shelter for
Kathleen, who bloomed into exquisite love-
illness in that humble Partisan lodging,
fair flower poisoning unseen, with, hap
PLY, few to note her beauty.
Rose found only too soon that education
was drug in the Partisan markets. After
heroic efforts to get employment as a morn
ing governess in a bridesmaids family, she
fell back upon the only industry which Of
fered itself, and, by the help of her first
Partisan friend, Madame Schubert, the stout
matron who had found her lodging, she
unemployment as an artificial flower-maker,
in which art she progressed rapidly, and, in
a couple oe years. attained perfection
which insured her liberal wages-wages
which enabled her to maintain the little
lodging, and feed and clothe herself and
her sister. The fare was of the simplest,
and there was good deal of pinching need
ed to make both ends meet In that luxurious
expensive city of Paris especially in winter,
when fuel made such an inroad upon the
slender purse; but somehow the girls never
knew actual privation, never went to bed
hungry, or were haunted in their slumber
by the nightmare of debt The little rooms
on the third story were the pink of neat
ness. Kathleen was housekeeper, and her
busy hands swept and busted and polished,
and kept all things bright. The modest
gray or brown merino gowns were never
shabby or dilapidated. Collars and cuffs
were always spotess, and the little feet
neatly shod. There were Always few half
pence for the bag at Notre Dame, and there
was always loaf TO divide with poor
neighbor, OF a cup of soup for a sick child.
On the other hand, the pleasures of the
sisters were of the rarest, and, perhaps, that
is why they were so sweet. A steamboat
excursion once or twice in long summer
to some suburban village that was almost
the country;a visit to a cheap boulevard
theatre once or twice in the long winter.
But o, how heavenly was the scent of lime
blossoms, how exquisite the verdure of sum-
mer meadows, to those who tasted the lux.
ury so seldoml And how vivid and real was
that sham world of the stage to those who
so seldom saw the curtain Tiso upon that
paint and tinsel paradisel
Rose and Kathleen lived as humbly as
grisettes live, and dressed as grisettes dress:
but they preserved the secluded habits of
English ladies-knew 10 one, and spoke to
no one, outside the narrow enclosure Of that
little stone-paved yard in the Rue Git lie
CGur, with its three houses divided into
twenty domicileS. Among these dwellings
the sisters had made few respectable ac-
quaintances, including Madame Schubert,
the stout matron who grew more. and more
obese as the years went by, who was de-
scribed somewhat vaguely as a petit RENTER,
and whose only business in life was to know
the business of her neighbors, and to attend
upon an ancient coffee-colored pug almost
as obese as herself.
AS she was their first, so was Madame
Schubert their best and most intimate friend,
and, indeed, the one only person whom the
Demoiselles o Hara visited and received in
this vast city of Paris. She was always
their companion and protectress in those
happy excursions TO the country, those fairy
like nights at the theatre. 1t was she who
supplied the secluded damses with news of
the outside world. She knew, or pretended
to know. everything that was going on in
Paris; and she certainly did know every
thing that went on in the Rue Git lie Ceur.
1t was Madame, or in familiar parlance
Maman, Schubert who gave Rose and Kath-
leen the first information abouta new lodger
who had taken up his abode in the two lit
tie garrets over their own apartment-a
young man with handsome face, and
gentil-ah, but how gentiI! tout-dtdh talon
rouge He would bear comparison with
any gGndip OH the boulevard, although his
coat looked as if it had been well worn, and
all his worldly goods consisted of one bat
tered portmanteau and an old egg-box full
of books.
HE writes for the papers-for the Drd-
pedu Rouge" said Maman Schubert II
have seen the printers devil going up stairs
with proofs. But he is not rich, this youth,
for he breakfasts at Suzon Michels cremerie,
and he often buys a slice of Lyons sausage
and loaf as he goes home I'm the afternoon,
when other young men are going to their