a big house, with statues in the garden."

The old man turned away, but presently came running back. "I see you
belong to the 106th. If it is your regiment you are looking for, it left
the city by the Chateau, down there. I just met the colonel, Monsieur de
Vineuil; I used to know him when he lived at Mezieres."

But Jean went his way, with an angry gesture of impatience. No, no! no
sleeping on the hard ground for him, now that he was certain of finding
Maurice. And yet he could not help feeling a twinge of remorse as he
thought of the dignified old colonel, who stood fatigue so manfully
in spite of his years, sharing the sufferings of his men, with no more
luxurious shelter than his tent. He strode across the Grande Rue with
rapid steps and soon was in the midst of the tumult and uproar of the
city; there he hailed a small boy, who conducted him to the Rue Maqua.

There it was that in the last century a grand-uncle of the present
Delaherche had built the monumental structure that had remained in the
family a hundred and sixty years. There is more than one cloth factory
in Sedan that dates back to the early years of Louis XV.; enormous
piles, they are, covering as much ground as the Louvre, and with stately
facades of royal magnificence. The one in the Rue Maqua was three
stories high, and its tall windows were adorned with carvings of severe
simplicity, while the palatial courtyard in the center was filled
with grand old trees, gigantic elms that were coeval with the building
itself. In it three generations of Delaherches had amassed comfortable
fortunes for themselves. The father of Charles, the proprietor in our
time, had inherited the property from a cousin who had died without
being blessed with children, so that it was now a younger branch that
was in possession. The affairs of the house had prospered under the
father's control, but he was something of a blade and a roisterer, and
his wife's existence with him was not one of unmixed happiness; the
consequence of which was that the lady, when she became a widow, not
caring to see a repetition by the son of the performances of the father,
made haste to find a wife for him in the person of a simple-minded and
exceedingly devout young woman, and subsequently kept him tied to her
apron string until he had attained the mature age of fifty and over. But
no one in this transitory world can tell what time has in store for him;
when the devout young person's time came to l