outh, and one foot drawn up in the most
ludicrous manner.

"Alfred, I say!" screamed Madame Pipelet, a second time, in a voice loud
enough to awake the dead.

"Anastasie down there? Then it is impossible she can be ill up-stairs,"
said Pipelet, mentally, faithful to his system of close and logical
argumentation. "Whose, then, was the manly voice that spoke of her
illness, and of his undoing her stays? An impostor, doubtless, to whom
my distraction and alarm have been a matter of amusement; but what
motive could he have had in thus working upon my susceptible feelings?
Something very extraordinary is going on here. However, as soon as I
have been to answer my wife's inquiry, I will return to clear up this
mystery, and to discover the person whose voice summoned me in such
haste."

In considerable agitation did M. Pipelet descend, and find himself in
his wife's presence.

"It is you, then, this time?" inquired he.

"Of course it is me; who did you expect it was?"

"'Tis you, indeed! My senses do not deceive me!"

"Alfred, what is the matter with you? Why do you stand there, staring
and opening your mouth, as if you meant to swallow me?"

"Because your presence reveals to me that strange things are passing
here, so strange that--"

"Oh, stuff and nonsense! Give me the key of the lodge! What made you
leave it when I was out? I have just come from the office where the
diligence starts from for Normandy. I went there in a coach to take M.
Bradamanti's trunk, as he did not wish that little rascal, Tortillard,
to know anything about it, since, it seems, he had rather no one should
be acquainted with the fact of his leaving Paris this evening; and, as
for his mistrusting the boy, why, I don't wonder at it."

Saying these words, Madame Pipelet took the key from her husband's hand,
opened the lodge, and entered it before her partner; but scarcely were
they both safe within its dark recesses, than an individual, lightly
descending the staircase, passed swiftly and unobserved before the
lodge. This personage was Cabrion, who, having managed to steal
up-stairs, had so powerfully worked upon the porter's tender
susceptibilities. M. Pipelet threw himself into his chair, saying to his
wife, in a voice of deep emotion:

"Anastasie; I do not feel myself comfortable to-day; strange and
mysterious things are going on in this house."

"What! Are you going to break out again? What an old fool you are! Why,
strange things happe