I made Paulette sit down, and questioned her with a light heart.
At first the little girl replied in monosyllables; but very soon the tables were turned, and it was I who interrupted with short interjections her long and confidential talk.

The poor child leads a hard life.

She was left an orphan long since, with a brother and sister, and lives with an old grandmother, who has "brought them up to poverty," as she always calls it.
However, Paulette now helps her to make bandboxes, her little sister Perrine begins to use the needle, and her brother Henry is apprentice to a printer.

All would go well if it were not for losses and want of work--if it were not for clothes which wear out, for appetites which grow larger, and for the winter, when you cannot get sunshine for nothing.

Paulette complains that her candles go too quickly, and that her wood costs too much.