The blacksmith who wore his frock-coat, had Gervaise on his left arm and Virginie on his right; he was doing the two-handled basket as he said; and it seemed to them such a funny thing to say that they stopped, unable to move their legs for laughing.

They looked at themselves in the pork-butcher's glass and laughed more than ever.

Beside Goujet, all in black, the two women looked like two speckled hens--the dressmaker in her muslin costume, sprinkled with pink flowers, the laundress in her white cambric dress with blue spots, her wrists bare, and wearing round her neck a little grey silk scarf tied in a bow.

People turned round to see them pass, looking so fresh and lively, dressed in their Sunday best on a week day and jostling the crowd which hung about the Rue des Poissonniers, on that warm June evening.

But it was not a question of amusing themselves.
They went straight to the door of each wineshop, looked in and sought amongst the people standing before the counter.