The Ladies Paradise

Excerpt from The Ladies’ Paradise: A Realistic Novel 
Oh! Look there, Jean, said she; and they stood still, nestling close to one another, all dressed in black, wearing the old mourning bought at their father’s death. She, rather puny for her twenty years, was carrying a small parcel; on the other side. Her little brother, five years old, was clinging to her arm; while behind her, the big brother, a strapping youth of sixteen, was standing empty-handed.