Still it was drier than the streets of Paris, and if it had been a palace
it could not have been more welcome to me than it was that night.
The _menage_ of Ninette was a strange one! There was a tumbledown deserted
house in the Montparnasse district. It stood apart, in an overgrown weedy
garden, and has long ago been pulled down. It was uninhabited; no one but a
Parisian _gamine_ could have lived in it, and Ninette had long occupied it,
unmolested, save by the rats. Through the broken palings in the garden she
had no difficulty in passing, and as its back door had fallen to pieces,
there was nothing to bar her further entry. In one of the few rooms which
had its window intact, right at the top of the house, a mere attic, Ninette
had installed herself and her scanty goods, and henceforward this became my
home also.
It has struck me since as strange that the child's presence should not have
been resented by the owner. But I fancy the house had some story connected
with it. It was, I believe, the property of an old and infirm miser, who
in his reluctance to part with any of his money in repairs had overreached
himself, and let his property become valueless. He could not let it,
and he would not pull it down.
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