by the appearance of the least important customer, have based upon
this short season hopes of extraordinary profits. And there would be
colloquies, reflections, an interminable perplexity to know what to
select in that little complex brain of his, always ahead of the present
instant and of the occupation of the moment.

This year, alas! nothing of that kind. He wandered sadly through the
town in its rejoicing, time seeming to hang all the heavier for the
activity around him, jostled, hustled, as all are who stand obstructing
the way of active folk, his heart beating with a perpetual fear, for
Bonne Maman for some days past, in conversation with him at table,
had been making significant allusions with regard to the New Year's
presents. Consequently he avoided finding himself alone with her and had
forbidden her to come to meet him at the office at closing-time. But
in spite of all his efforts he knew the moment was drawing near when
concealment would be impossible and his grievous secret be unveiled.
Was, then, a very formidable person, Bonne Maman, that M. Joyeuse should
stand in such fear of her? By no means. A little stern, that was all,
with a pretty smile that instantly forgave one. But M. Joyeuse was
a coward, timid from his birth; twenty years of housekeeping with a
masterful wife, "a member of the nobility," having made him a slave for
ever, like those convicts who, after their imprisonment is over, have to
undergo a period of surveillance. And for him this meant all his life.

One evening the Joyeuse family was gathered in the little drawing-room,
last relic of its splendour, still containing two upholstered chairs,
many crochet decorations, a piano, two lamps crowned with little green
shades, and a what-not covered with bric-a-brac.

True family life exists in humble homes.

For the sake of economy, there was lighted for the whole household but
one fire and a single lamp, around which the occupations and amusements
of all were grouped. A fine big family lamp, whose old painted
shade--night scenes pierced with shining dots--had been the astonishment
and the joy of every one of those young girls in her early childhood.
Issuing softly from the shadow of the room, four young heads were bent
forward, fair or dark, smiling or intent, into that intimate and warm
circle of light which illumined them as far as the eyes, seemed to feed
the fire of their glance, to shelter them, protect them, preserve them
from the bl