lls, Don Quixote, and noticed several odd
volumes of the Picturesque Magazine.

Hanging from the whitened ceiling were clusters of nuts, twisted hemp,
strings of yellow maize, and chaplets of golden pippins tied with straw,
all harmonizing in the dim light, and adding increased fulness to the
picture of thrift and abundance.

"It's jolly here!" said the driver, smacking his lips, "and the smell
which comes from that oven makes one hungry. I wish Mamselle Reine would
arrive!"

Just as he said this, a mysterious falsetto voice, which seemed to come
from behind the copper basins, repeated, in an acrid voice: "Reine!
Reine!"

"What in the world is that?" exclaimed the driver, puzzled.

Both looked toward the beams; at the same moment there was a rustling of
wings, a light hop, and a black-and-white object flitted by, resting,
finally, on one of the shelves hanging from the joists.

"Ha, ha!" said the driver, laughing, "it is only a magpie!"

He had hardly said it, when, like a plaintive echo, another voice, a
human voice this time, childish and wavering, proceeding from a dark
corner, faltered: "Rei-eine--Rei-eine!"

"Hark!" murmured Julien, "some one answered."

His companion seized the lamp, and advanced toward the portion of the
room left in shadow. Suddenly he stopped short, and stammered some vague
excuse.

Julien, who followed him, then perceived, with alarm, in a sort of niche
formed by two screens, entirely covered with illustrations from Epinal, a
strange-looking being stretched in an easy-chair, which was covered with
pillows and almost hidden under various woolen draperies. He was dressed
in a long coat of coarse, pale-blue cloth. He was bareheaded, and his
long, white hair formed a weird frame for a face of bloodless hue and
meagre proportions, from which two vacant eyes stared fixedly. He sat
immovable and his arms hung limply over his knees.

"Monsieur," said Julien, bowing ceremoniously, "we are quite ashamed at
having disturbed you. Your servant forgot to inform us of your presence,
and we were waiting for Mademoiselle Reine, without thinking that--"

The old man continued immovable, not seeming to understand; he kept
repeating, in the same voice, like a frightened child:

"Rei-eine! Rei-eine!"

The two bewildered travellers gazed at this sepulchral-looking personage,
then at each other interrogatively, and began to feel very uncomfortable.
The magpie, perched upon the hanging shelf, suddenl