It was excusable for her to slack a little on Monday after drudging all through the week.

Besides, it was necessary to her.

She would have had no courage left, and would have expected to see the shirts iron themselves, if she had not been able to dress up in some pretty thing.
Gervaise was always so amiable, meek as a lamb, sweet as sugar.

There wasn't any one she disliked except Madame Lorilleux.

While she was enjoying a good meal and coffee, she could be indulgent and forgive everybody saying: "We have to forgive each other--don't we ?--unless we want to live like savages." Hadn't all her dreams come true?
She remembered her old dream: to have a job, enough bread to eat and a corner in which to sleep, to bring up her children, not to be beaten, and to die in her own bed.