, so as to arrive sooner at
the hotel; she remembered its situation perfectly, in the
Place Royale, not far from the stand where the band used to
play every evening; and there its was at last, all unchanged
since she had last seen it three years ago, and with "Hotel de
Madrid" shining in big gold letters above the door.

Every one who knows Spa, knows the Place Royale, with its
broad walks and rows of trees, leading from the shady avenues
of the Promenade a Sept Heures at the one end, to the winding
street with its gay shops at the other. The Hotel de Madrid
was situated about half-way down the Place, and, as compared
with the great hotels of Spa, it was small, mean, and third-
rate, little frequented therefore by the better class of
visitors, and with no particular recommendation beyond its
situation on the Place Royale, its cheap terms, and its
excellent landlady. M. Linders, whose means did not always
admit of reckless expenditure, and whose credit was not wholly
unlimited, had gone there two or three times, when visiting
Spa to retrieve fallen fortunes; and the first time he had
taken Madelon with him, she and Madame Bertrand had become
such fast friends, that, for his child's sake, he never
afterwards went anywhere else. Madelon had the most lively,
pleasant recollections of the stout motherly landlady, whose
store of bonbons and confitures had been absolutely endless.
Of all her friends in this class, Madame Bertrand had been the
one to whom she had most attached herself, and now it was
almost with the feeling of finding herself at home that she
saw the hotel before her.

The door stood open, and she went into the small hall, or
rather passage, which ran through the house, ending in another
door, which, also open, afforded a green view of many currant
and gooseberry bushes in Madame Bertrand's garden. To the
right was the staircase, to the left the _salle-a-manger_, a low
room with two windows looking on to the Place, and furnished
with half-a-dozen small round tables, for the hotel was of too
unpretentious a nature to aspire to a _table d'hote_; the floor
lacked polish, and the furniture was shabby, yet the room had
a friendly look to our homeless Madelon, as a frequent
resting-place in such wanderings to and fro as had been hers
in former years. She went in. A man was sitting at one of the
tables, a tall bottle of red wine at his side, and a dish of
cutlets before him, eating his late _dejeuner_, and rea