have been
formidable, an underlying fate--"

"But in my place?" said Hulot.

"Why, you ask my advice? You who sell it!" replied Monsieur Chapuzot.
"Come, come, my dear sir, you are making fun of me."

Hulot bowed to the functionary, and went away without seeing that
gentleman's almost imperceptible shrug as he rose to open the door.

"And he wants to be a statesman!" said Chapuzot to himself as he
returned to his reports.

Victorin went home, still full of perplexities which he could confide to
no one.

At dinner the Baroness joyfully announced to her children that within a
month their father might be sharing their comforts, and end his days in
peace among his family.

"Oh, I would gladly give my three thousand six hundred francs a year to
see the Baron here!" cried Lisbeth. "But, my dear Adeline, do not dream
beforehand of such happiness, I entreat you!"

"Lisbeth is right," said Celestine. "My dear mother, wait till the end."

The Baroness, all feeling and all hope, related her visit to Josepha,
expressed her sense of the misery of such women in the midst of good
fortune, and mentioned Chardin the mattress-picker, the father of the
Oran storekeeper, thus showing that her hopes were not groundless.

By seven next morning Lisbeth had driven in a hackney coach to the Quai
de la Tournelle, and stopped the vehicle at the corner of the Rue de
Poissy.

"Go to the Rue des Bernardins," said she to the driver, "No. 7, a house
with an entry and no porter. Go up to the fourth floor, ring at the
door to the left, on which you will see 'Mademoiselle Chardin--Lace and
shawls mended.' She will answer the door. Ask for the Chevalier. She
will say he is out. Say in reply, 'Yes, I know, but find him, for his
_bonne_ is out on the quay in a coach, and wants to see him.'"

Twenty minutes later, an old man, who looked about eighty, with
perfectly white hair, and a nose reddened by the cold, and a pale,
wrinkled face like an old woman's, came shuffling slowly along in list
slippers, a shiny alpaca overcoat hanging on his stooping shoulders, no
ribbon at his buttonhole, the sleeves of an under-vest showing below
his coat-cuffs, and his shirt-front unpleasantly dingy. He approached
timidly, looked at the coach, recognized Lisbeth, and came to the
window.

"Why, my dear cousin, what a state you are in!"

"Elodie keeps everything for herself," said Baron Hulot. "Those Chardins
are a blackguard crew."

"Will you come hom