was also panelled. The latter had three projecting
beams, but these were painted, and between them the space was plastered.
The mantel, also in walnut, surmounted by a mirror in the most grotesque
frame, had no other ornament than two brass eggs standing on a marble
base, each of which opened in the middle; the upper half when turned
over showed a socket for a candle. These candlesticks for two lights,
festooned with chains (an invention of the reign of Louis XV.), were
becoming rare. On a green and gold bracket fastened to the wall opposite
to the window was a common but excellent clock. The curtains, which
squeaked upon their rods, were at least fifty years old; their material,
of cotton in a square pattern like that of mattresses, alternately pink
and white, came from the Indies. A sideboard and dinner-table completed
the equipment of the room, which was kept with extreme nicety.

At the corner of the fireplace was an immense sofa, Rigou's especial
seat. In the angle, above a little "bonheur du jour," which served him
as a desk, and hanging to a common screw, was a pair of bellows, the
origin of Rigou's fortune.

From this succinct description, in style like that of an auction sale,
it will be easy to imagine that the bedrooms of Monsieur and Madame
Rigou were limited to mere necessaries; yet it would be a mistake to
suppose that such parsimony affected the essential excellence of those
necessaries. For instance, the most fastidious of women would have slept
well in Rigou's bed, with fine linen sheets, excellent mattresses, made
luxurious by a feather-bed (doubtless bought for some abbe by a pious
female parishioner) and protected from draughts by thick curtains. All
the rest of Rigou's belongings were made comfortable for his use, as we
shall see.

In the first place, he had reduced his wife, who could neither read,
write, nor cipher, to absolute obedience. After having ruled her
deceased master, the poor creature was now the servant of her husband;
she cooked and did the washing, with very little help from a pretty girl
named Annette, who was nineteen years old and as much a slave to Rigou
as her mistress, and whose wages were thirty francs a year.

Tall, thin, and withered, Madame Rigou, a woman with a yellow face
red about the cheek-bones, her head always wrapped in a colored
handkerchief, and wearing the same dress all the year round, did not
leave the house for two hours in a month's time, but kept herself