For three months from that day Mme. Veuve Vauquer availed herself of
the services of M. Goriot's coiffeur, and went to some expense over her
toilette, expense justifiable on the ground that she owed it to herself
and her establishment to pay some attention to appearances when such
highly-respectable persons honored her house with their presence. She
expended no small amount of ingenuity in a sort of weeding process of
her lodgers, announcing her intention of receiving henceforward none but
people who were in every way select. If a stranger presented himself,
she let him know that M. Goriot, one of the best known and most
highly-respected merchants in Paris, had singled out her boarding-house
for a residence. She drew up a prospectus headed MAISON VAUQUER, in
which it was asserted that hers was "_one of the oldest and most highly
recommended boarding-houses in the Latin Quarter_." "From the windows
of the house," thus ran the prospectus, "there is a charming view of
the Vallee des Gobelins (so there is--from the third floor), and a
_beautiful_ garden, _extending_ down to _an avenue of lindens_ at the
further end." Mention was made of the bracing air of the place and its
quiet situation.

It was this prospectus that attracted Mme. la Comtesse de l'Ambermesnil,
a widow of six and thirty, who was awaiting the final settlement of her
husband's affairs, and of another matter regarding a pension due to her
as the wife of a general who had died "on the field of battle." On this
Mme. Vauquer saw to her table, lighted a fire daily in the sitting-room
for nearly six months, and kept the promise of her prospectus, even
going to some expense to do so. And the Countess, on her side, addressed
Mme. Vauquer as "my dear," and promised her two more boarders, the
Baronne de Vaumerland and the widow of a colonel, the late Comte de
Picquoisie, who were about to leave a boarding-house in the Marais,
where the terms were higher than at the Maison Vauquer. Both these
ladies, moreover, would be very well to do when the people at the
War Office had come to an end of their formalities. "But Government
departments are always so dilatory," the lady added.

After dinner the two widows went together up to Mme. Vauquer's room, and
had a snug little chat over some cordial and various delicacies reserved
for the mistress of the house. Mme. Vauquer's ideas as to Goriot were
cordially approved by Mme. de l'Ambermesnil; it was a capital notion,
which for