EUROPE 61 
women make here, but it is exquisitely fine and of 
very graceful patterns. I wanted to buy some, and 
while we were making our purchase Cécile and I 
went into one of the houses where one of the lace 
workers lived. We came first into a little kitchen, 
where everything looked poor as poverty, but as neat 
as wax; a little fire burned in the chimney, and they 
were preparing their scanty supper. Out of that led 
another room not much larger, where we found the 
father of the family with two daughters working at 
different parts of music boxes. They worked before a 
window through which they looked out over the slopes 
of the Jura to Mt. Blane, but I believe if Paradise 
lay before them they would not raise their eyes to look 
at it, they are so afraid of losing time; and the father 
told me that in beginning their work at four o’clock 
in the morning and never ceasing till nightfall they 
found it difficult to earn thirty cents a day. They 
were in rags, but they looked perfectly clean. In that 
little chamber slept the whole family, six in all, the 
father and mother, two daughters, and two old men, 
the grandfathers, and yet everything was as clean 
and neat as possible. One of the beds was not made 
and the father apologized, saying, “The two old men 
sleep there, and we like to let them rest, so (that) 
we cannot make their bed before daybreak as we do 
our own, and not to lose time during the daylight, 
we leave it till it is too dark to work.’ The mother 
worked at the lace, of which I purchased three yards, 
but only two and a half were finished. I said to her, 
“Never mind, I will pay you now and you will send 
