ter Flavie entered the salon, where Brigitte was
walking up and down, in a state of extreme agitation.

"My dear," she cried on seeing Flavie, "you can do me a great service,
which concerns our dear Celeste. You know Tullia, don't you?--a danseuse
at the opera; my brother was always dinning her into my ears at one
time."

"Yes, I know her; but she is no longer a danseuse; she is Madame la
Comtesse du Bruel. Her husband is peer of France!"

"Does she still like you?"

"We never see each other now."

"Well, I know that Chaffaroux, the rich contractor, is her uncle," said
Brigitte. "He is old and wealthy. Go and see your former friend, and get
her to give you a line of introduction to him, saying he would do her an
eminent favor if he would give a piece of friendly advice to the bearer
of the note, and then you and I will take it to him to-morrow about one
o'clock. But tell Tullia she must request her uncle to keep secret about
it. Go, my dear. Celeste, our dear child, will be a millionaire! I can't
say more; but she'll have, from me, a husband who will put her on a
pinnacle."

"Do you want me to tell you the first letters of his name?"

"Yes."

"T. P.,--Theodose de la Peyrade. You are right. That's a man who may, if
supported by a woman like you, become a minister."

"It is God himself who has placed him in our house!" cried the old maid.

At this moment Monsieur and Madame Thuillier returned home.

Five days later, in the month of April, the ordinance which convoked the
electors to appoint a member of the municipal council on the 20th of the
same month was inserted in the "Moniteur," and placarded about Paris.
For several weeks the ministry, called that of March 1st, had been in
power. Brigitte was in a charming humor. She had been convinced of the
truth of all la Peyrade's assertions. The house, visited from garret
to cellar by old Chaffaroux, was admitted by him to be an admirable
construction; poor Grindot, the architect, who was interested with the
notary and Claparon in the affair, thought the old man was employed in
the interests of the contractor; the old fellow himself thought he was
acting in the interests of his niece, and he gave it as his opinion that
thirty thousand francs would finish the house. Thus, in the course of
one week la Peyrade became Brigitte's god; and she proved to him by the
most naively nefarious arguments that fortune should be seized when it
offered itself.

"Well, if there _