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Show FLEUR-DE-LIS 18] dagézgllwzfiis ty and loyal. ang llltl-léll Marie was young and pret ndy ile (hesogrEu wear 1:vlli«new . ‘ ifiethat th(inbatbf‘i i . lilii‘ 2 iiilbo to take enni"es TEXSIlle mg Til1e.p erategat iey desp and, mos te- her thusb moun the(F Lt (anti, left o With the 11¢ sci-called music from the pian )111, veins But there was not {:1 ialce iii the monotonous service. in -t' W )l‘ide of 00( ‘ ars begg of drop a ' , bank in l'iCri-e Dripont, nor marl had still the self-respee ‘ and crinled, but he " ‘ noble tulmliels, r3133 [Vitihifltit fly Kate goo "(fies (Oi 47m é'atulngsé Edmundj Suffwan Self? (3.3 jgm‘tincngy Cartier? @Smiih @‘J l"iii:r‘ii-ni-‘,-Iiis had been christened Marie Ilortciisc Amelie DuPont: Marie for her mother. Hortense and Amelie in honour of the two \‘icomtesses de ltastignac. sole survivors of the proud old Royalist family in whom service Marie‘s mother and grandmother had lived, and into whose service Marie herself had been born. But when It! [Ir/[la Marie Hortense Amelie was a mere blossom of babyhood she forsook the name that the priest had given her as he touched her downy head with the holy water, and chose instead to be called Fleurde-lis a name, in sooth, much better suited to a noble daughter of the ltastigiiaes than to a child of Marie Dupont, maker of tissue-paper flowers, and Pierre Dripont, street musician. Fleur-dedis had first opened her eyes in a very humble chamber, but it was large enough to hold a deal of sweet content, which grew all the sweeter when she ‘aine to share it. There were only two rooms for father, mother. and child, and these were in a dreary tenement house. for l'ierre Dupont. a stranger in a strange land, was having a desperate struggle with poverty. On being discharged from the hospital, where he had passed through the dangerous illness that left him a maimed and broken man, he had to begin the world all over again, and begin it single-handed, in very truth. There were few things to which he could turn his one hand; one of them was the crank of a street-piano, and in a modest example of that modern instrument of torture he accordingly invested the last of his savings. lie was much too good for it. but by regarding it distinctly as a hated object which should be discarded the moment something better appeared. he mastered his aversion, and, by wheeling it through the streets from morning till night, he managed to live, for there were always people who wanted to hear it, and others who (lid not. so that between the two classes he scraped together enough frugal needs ('01 ~(trig/M in the ($52.14. fill] the L'ruzizry Col/many. MO for his had served till: deoaiiint whosleI people o, lJTlt he dL anu::0:i:16{11:32}_dsitl_i'e§t-pian what true nobility is. 11ll'le cgul woman or aever for ' inon o 1?1 lil e than morke 111,1 a Oilinsualt S mg of ac( tru , tbyspar m the must e mthe hed at if leas ime coul past en oott t‘or 't lin ving e,10 Mari man hia So on. essi to the proc ‘ A .0" took up an. a mos .. 0' ‘1 rzllctlicm his chivalrous re rard of her, 15,113hdi-il‘le to making artihcral flow-€ of her girlhood, find fell ers a who stood on the street corn to an old woman re )assers-b . and care is t. it t 215cour t the ement house were1 ,3.8. nea t0 t1Tlie two rdoms in the ten doors to wet if llltl Oiiy ed1 open ws ndo -wi thrift could make them. The grind ‘tt the baby; did not need to or; true, but Pierre and Marie ealdll Otvrlc\1\:it(l1 at a pleasant View, for they could look n an( des, the glass was spotlessly clea C({MHV spotless" 111m? ~15; never a; speck of besi e Wt; -ked had a not tiei but ed, rpet unea curtains. The floors were ilgiietl on the stove; lif11i ID-Iél re whe hen dust on them. The little kitc each day. Some- m [Slu id t CZL Puffll1{:/ unappetising fragrance from the w io . .1 nd 1"") ironic for a ayte for it in hine suns of am it had also a gle g by her bus for half an hour :1- ~ieisittin times when Pierre left his incu e. )‘tpCl‘-il()\\'€l‘ faith , he looked at Maman i mouthful of bread and soup ibOWgleaming {invimilf'with the raii sors scis her , hine suns the ing table in feet Pail-"1"." them and. putt her at ing sitt , -lis r-de petals, and at Fleu e me he had, forgot esi<1 s knee his on fell he coloured scraps, and then uncertain. that it was the} (tiny (WIS all his arm about them both. forgot 1,1th that 1tlref Liulildechild. and that and , pled crip and poor was that he 1‘ en; him. For it happens. w ant‘ e hom had he that only remembering sibly (ear ‘ tumble tenement. and with all its hardships, was inexpres ed in a very ~l-ud flourishes in the lodg is sometimes, that a poet's soul a our to a knight blossoriis a love that would do hon _ . ings ound surr ful piti and and n midst of mea bit ‘ofVitricolour, curtains made oi1a ftl Fleur-de-lis's cradle had rg‘in swinging hung ameda 0 Alewwdcn box. "I" from the centre of the canopy there le itsclt \l‘lstlic l‘tck of ordinary on a narrow ribbon of blue. The cradsurm < ouutu. that y nuit inge rnal mate a with Marie, |
