ed at him, and yet she would have liked to
kiss the young fellow. She gazed at him, trying to find any likeness to
her husband or her son. He was robust and ruddy-cheeked and had his
mother's fair hair and blue eyes, but there was something in his face
which reminded Jeanne of Julien, though she could not discover where the
resemblance lay.

"I should be very much obliged if you could show me the things now,"
continued the lad.

But she did not know herself yet what she should be able to take, her
new house was so small, and she asked him to come again in a week's
time.

For some time the removal occupied Jeanne's thoughts, and made a change,
though a sad one, in her dull, hopeless life. She went from room to
room, seeking the pieces of furniture which were associated in her mind
with various events in her life, for the furniture among which we live
becomes, in time, part of our lives--almost of ourselves--and, as it
gets old, and we look at its faded colors, its frayed coverings, its
tattered linings, we are reminded of the prominent dates and events of
our existence by these time-worn objects which have been the mute
companions of our happy and of our sad moments alike.

As agitated as if the decisions she were making had been of the last
importance, Jeanne chose, one by one, the things she should take with
her, often hesitating and altering her mind at every moment, as she
stood unable to decide the respective merits of two armchairs, or of
some old escritoire and a still older worktable. She opened and searched
every drawer, and tried to connect every object with something that had
happened in bygone days, and when at last she made up her mind and said:
"Yes, I shall take this," the article she had decided upon was taken
downstairs and put into the dining-room. She wished to keep the whole of
her bedroom furniture, the bed, the tapestry, the clock--everything, and
she also took a few of the drawing-room chairs, choosing those with the
designs she had always liked ever since she could remember--the fox and
the stork, the fox and the crow, the ant and the grasshopper, and the
solitary heron.

One day, as she was wandering all over this house she should so soon
have to leave, Jeanne went up into the garret. She was amazed when she
opened the door; there lay articles of furniture of every description,
some broken, others only soiled, others again stored away simply because
fresh things had been bought and put in t