"Are you sure? will you guarantee it?"
"Yes, monsieur; as I'm an honest woman!—A young lady, brought up in the best way by strict parents, who never goes out alone——"
"This seems to me to fit the case to perfection.—By the way, there's one other condition: my Sicilian is particular that she shall be a Parisian; he insists on that; he thinks that no women but the Parisians can wear hoopskirts gracefully."
"My young lady is a Parisian, monsieur; born, I believe, on Rue du Pont-aux-Choux, the very centre of Paris."
"The centre of the Marais, you mean, Putiphar."
"That's all the same."
"Yes; Miflorès doesn't insist that his future wife must have been born in the Chaussée d'Antin, especially as he never heard of it. Is the family respectable? We are particular about that, you see. A Sicilian count wouldn't want to ally himself with a dealer in rabbit skins—you can understand that."
"Oh! it's a most respectable family, monsieur. Monsieur Mirotaine, the father, is an ex-bailiff."
"Positive, monsieur. He don't do anything now—he lives on his income. Juliette's mother—mademoiselle's name is Juliette—is dead; Monsieur Mirotaine is married again, to a woman much younger than he is; from which you can conclude that the stepmother is in a hurry to marry off her stepdaughter."