remain until the
appointed day when she left it forever,--a litter of confusion which
words are powerless to describe. Cats were domiciled on the sofa. The
canaries, occasionally let loose, left their commas on the furniture.
The poor dear woman scattered little heaps of millet and bits of
chickweed about the room, and put tidbits for the cats in broken
saucers. Garments lay everywhere. The room breathed of the provinces
and of constancy. Everything that once belonged to Bridau was
scrupulously preserved. Even the implements in his desk received the
care which the widow of a paladin might have bestowed upon her
husband's armor. One slight detail here will serve to bring the tender
devotion of this woman before the reader's mind. She had wrapped up a
pen and sealed the package, on which she wrote these words, "Last pen
used by my dear husband." The cup from which he drank his last draught
was on the fireplace; caps and false hair were tossed, at a later
period, over the glass globes which covered these precious relics.
After Bridau's death not a trace of coquetry, not even a woman's
ordinary care of her person, was left in the young widow of
thirty-five. Parted from the only man she had ever known, esteemed, and
loved, from one who had never caused her the slightest unhappiness,
she was no longer conscious of her womanhood; all things were as
nothing to her; she no longer even thought of her dress. Nothing was
ever more simply done or more complete than this laying down of
conjugal happiness and personal charm. Some human beings obtain
through love the power of transferring their self--their I--to the
being of another; and when death takes that other, no life of their
own is possible for them.

Agathe, who now lived only for her children, was infinitely sad at the
thought of the privations this financial ruin would bring upon them.
From the time of her removal to the rue Mazarin a shade of melancholy
came upon her face, which made it very touching. She hoped a little in
the Emperor; but the Emperor at that time could do no more than he was
already doing; he was giving three hundred francs a year to each child
from his privy purse, besides the scholarships.

As for the brilliant Descoings, she occupied an _appartement_ on the
second floor similar to that of her niece above her. She had made
Madame Bridau an assignment of three thousand francs out of her
annuity. Roguin, the notary, attended to this in Madame Bridau's
i