one save you and myself:
the pleasure is consecrated to us two, unshared and unprofaned. To
speak truth, there has been to me in this matter a refinement of
enjoyment I would not make vulgar by communication. Besides" (smiling)
"I wanted to prove to Miss Lucy that I _could_ keep a secret. How often
has she taunted me with lack of dignified reserve and needful caution!
How many times has she saucily insinuated that all my affairs are the
secret of Polichinelle!"

This was true enough: I had not spared him on this point, nor perhaps
on any other that was assailable. Magnificent-minded, grand-hearted,
dear, faulty little man! You deserved candour, and from me always had
it.

Continuing my queries, I asked to whom the house belonged, who was my
landlord, the amount of my rent. He instantly gave me these particulars
in writing; he had foreseen and prepared all things.

The house was not M. Paul's--that I guessed: he was hardly the man to
become a proprietor; I more than suspected in him a lamentable absence
of the saving faculty; he could get, but not keep; he needed a
treasurer. The tenement, then, belonged to a citizen in the
Basse-Ville--a man of substance, M. Paul said; he startled me by
adding: "a friend of yours, Miss Lucy, a person who has a most
respectful regard for you." And, to my pleasant surprise, I found the
landlord was none other than M. Miret, the short-tempered and
kind-hearted bookseller, who had so kindly found me a seat that
eventful night in the park. It seems M. Miret was, in his station,
rich, as well as much respected, and possessed several houses in this
faubourg; the rent was moderate, scarce half of what it would have been
for a house of equal size nearer the centre of Villette.

"And then," observed M. Paul, "should fortune not favour you, though I
think she will, I have the satisfaction to think you are in good hands;
M. Miret will not be extortionate: the first year's rent you have
already in your savings; afterwards Miss Lucy must trust God, and
herself. But now, what will you do for pupils?"

"I must distribute my prospectuses."

"Right! By way of losing no time, I gave one to M. Miret yesterday.
Should you object to beginning with three petite bourgeoises, the
Demoiselles Miret? They are at your service."

"Monsieur, you forget nothing; you are wonderful. Object? It would
become me indeed to object! I suppose I hardly expect at the outset to
number aristocrats in my little day-schoo