The daughters, better dressed than their means warranted, followed their mother's example.

Beneath their outer garment, which was relatively handsome, they wore linen much finer than that of the richest peasant women.

On fete-days they appeared in dresses that were really pretty, obtained, Heaven knows how! For one thing, the men-servants at Les Aigues sold to them, at prices that were easily paid, the cast-off clothing of the lady's-maids, which, after sweeping the streets of Paris and being made over to fit Marie and Catherine, appeared triumphantly in the precincts of the Grand-I-Vert.

These girls, bohemians of the valley, received not one penny in money from their parents, who gave them food only, and the wretched pallets on which they slept with their grandmother in the barn, where their brothers also slept, curled up in the hay like animals.

Neither father nor mother paid any heed to this propinquity.
The iron age and the age of gold are more alike than we think for.