On each of the tables was a flat iron candlestick, such as are used by
the very poor, and in them Godefroid noticed tallow-candles of the kind
that are sold at eight to the pound.

On a third table glittered two forks and spoons and another little spoon
of silver-gilt, together with plates, bowls, and cups of Sevres china,
and a silver-gilt knife and fork in an open case, all evidently for the
service of the sick woman.

The stove was lighted; the water in the copper was steaming slightly.
A painted wooden closet or wardrobe contained, no doubt, the linen and
clothing of Monsieur Bernard's daughter. On the old man's bed Godefroid
noticed that the habiliments he had worn the night before lay spread
as a covering. The floor, evidently seldom swept, looked like that of a
boy's class-room. A six-pound loaf of bread, from which some slices had
been cut, was on a shelf above the table. Here was poverty in its last
stages, poverty resolutely accepted with stern endurance, making shift
with the lowest and poorest means. A strong and sickening odor came from
this room, which was rarely cleaned.

The antechamber, in which Godefroid stood, was at any rate decent, and
he suspected that it served to conceal the horrors of the room in which
the grandfather and the grandson lived. This antechamber, hung with a
checked paper of Scotch pattern, held four walnut chairs, a small table,
a colored engraving of the Emperor after Horace Vernet, also portraits
of Louis XVIII., Charles X., and Prince Poniatowski, no doubt the friend
of Monsieur Bernard's father-in-law. The window was draped with white
calico curtains edged with red bands and fringe.

Godefroid watched for Nepomucene, and when the latter made his next trip
with wood signed to him to stack it very gently in Monsieur Bernard's
antechamber; then (a perception which proved some progress in our
initiate) he closed the door of the inner lair that Madame Vauthier's
slave might not see the old man's squalor.

The antechamber was just then encumbered with three plant-stands filled
with plants; two were oblong, one round, all three were of a species
of ebony and of great elegance; even Nepomucene took notice of them and
said as he deposited the wood:--

"Hey! ain't they pretty? They must have cost a good bit!"

"Jean! don't make so much noise!" called Monsieur Bernard from his
daughter's room.

"Did you hear that?" whispered Nepomucene to Godefroid. "He's cracked,
for sure, that