The Lorilleuxs were bitterly jealous of these new friends of their
brother's. They declared it had a very queer look to see him and his
wife always with strangers rather than with his own family, and Mme
Lorilleux began to say hateful things again of Gervaise. Mme Lerat,
on the contrary, took her part, while Mamma Coupeau tried to please
everyone.

The day that Nana--which was the pet name given to the little
girl--was three years old Coupeau, on coming in, found his wife in
a state of great excitement. She refused to give any explanation,
saying, in fact, there really was nothing the matter, but she finally
became so abstracted that she stood still with the plates in her hand
as she laid the table for dinner, and her husband insisted on an
explanation.

"If you must know," she said, "that little shop in La Rue de la
Goutte-d'Or is vacant. I heard so only an hour ago, and it struck
me all of a heap!"

It was a very nice shop in the very house of which they had so often
thought. There was the shop itself--a back room--and two others. They
were small, to be sure, but convenient and well arranged; only she
thought it dear--five hundred francs.

"You asked the price then?"

"Yes, I asked it just out of curiosity," she answered with an air of
indifference, "but it is too dear, decidedly too dear. It would be
unwise, I think, to take it."