ABSTRACT
Most French schoolchildren go horne for lunch. Valentine 's horne became the house of Balmain. By the age of six and a half she was accustorned to walking inconspicuously through the ernployee 's entrance and being greeted with a grave handshake frorn the guard. Gliding silently upstairs through the corridors deserted by the lunch-time exodus, she found her rnother sitting expectantly in the corner of her atelier, one of the eleven at BaIrnain. There was always sornething hot, nourishing, and delicious in Helene 's covered basket for thern to share. Many of the other workers also brought their lunches frorn horne, and soon Valentine found
herself adopted by forty women, many of whom were not on speaking terms with each other from one year to the next, but all of whom had a soft word for Madame Helene's well-behaved, little half-orphaned daughter.