, ordered enormous quantities every year
for the Seraglio.

Adolphine held a lacquer tray on which were a number of little old
glasses with engraved sides and gilt edges; and as her mother filled
each of them, she carried it to the company.

"It seems as though my father's turn were coming round!" exclaimed
Agathe, to whom this immutable provincial custom recalled the scenes
of her youth.

"Hochon will go to his club presently to read the papers, and we shall
have a little time to ourselves," said the old lady in a low voice.

In fact, ten minutes later, the three women and Joseph were alone in
the salon, where the floor was never waxed, only swept, and the
worsted-work designs in oaken frames with grooved mouldings, and all
the other plain and rather dismal furniture seemed to Madame Bridau to
be in exactly the same state as when she had left Issoudun. Monarchy,
Revolution, Empire, and Restoration, which respected little, had
certainly respected this room where their glories and their disasters
had left not the slightest trace.

"Ah! my godmother, in comparison with your life, mine has been cruelly
tried," exclaimed Madame Bridau, surprised to find even a canary which
she had known when alive, stuffed, and standing on the mantleshelf
between the old clock, the old brass brackets, and the silver
candlesticks.

"My child," said the old lady, "trials are in the heart. The greater
and more necessary the resignation, the harder the struggle with our
own selves. But don't speak of me, let us talk of your affairs. You
are directly in front of the enemy," she added, pointing to the
windows of the Rouget house.

"They are sitting down to dinner," said Adolphine.

The young girl, destined for a cloister, was constantly looking out of
the window, in hopes of getting some light upon the enormities imputed
to Maxence Gilet, the Rabouilleuse, and Jean-Jacques, of which a few
words reached her ears whenever she was sent out of the room that
others might talk about them. The old lady now told her granddaughter
to leave her alone with Madame Bridau and Joseph until the arrival of
visitors.

"For," she said, turning to the Parisians, "I know my Issoudun by
heart; we shall have ten or twelve batches of inquisitive folk here
to-night."

In fact Madame Hochon had hardly related the events and the details
concerning the astounding influence obtained by Maxence Gilet and the
Rabouilleuse over Jean-Jacques Rouget (without, of co