"Admiring what, neighbour?"
"This pretty little room; for, neighbour, you are lodged like a queen."
"Why, you must know that is my enjoyment. I never go out, and so I can do no less than make my home comfortable."
"But really I never saw anything half so nice. What pretty curtains! and the drawers as handsome as mahogany! You must have spent a great deal of money here."
"Oh, don't mention it! I had, of my own, four hundred and twenty-five francs when I left the prison, and almost all has been spent."
"When you left the prison!—you?"
"Yes, but it is a very long story. Of course, you do not suppose that I was in prison for anything wrong?"
"Of course not; but how was it?"
"After the cholera, I was quite alone in the world. I was then, I think, ten years of age."
"But who had taken care of you till then?"