aste!"

Still he did not wish to go without having once more recommended his
"young kinswoman" to Mrs. Chevassat. He only left when she had over and
over again assured him that there was nothing more to be done; and then
the woman also went down.

The terrible emotions which had shaken and undermined Henrietta during
the last forty-eight hours were followed now by a feeling of intense
astonishment at what she had done, at the irrevocable step she had
taken. Her quiet life had been interrupted by an event which to her
appeared more stupendous than if a mountain had been moved. Standing
by the mantle-piece, she looked at her pale face in the little
looking-glass, and said to herself,--

"Is that myself, my own self?"

Yes, it was she herself, the only daughter of the great Count Ville-
Handry, here in a strange house, in a wretched garret-room, which she
called her own. It was she, yesterday still surrounded by princely
splendor, waited on by an army of servants, now in want of almost every
thing, and having for her only servant the old woman to whom M. de
Brevan had recommended her.

Was this possible? She could hardly believe it herself. Still she felt
no repentance at what she had done. She could not remain any longer
in her father's house where she was exposed to the vilest insults from
everybody. Could she have stayed any longer?

"But what is the use," she said to herself, "of thinking of what is
past? I must not allow myself to think of it; I must shake off this
heaviness."

And, to occupy her mind, she rose and went about to explore her new
home, and to examine all it contained. It was one of those lodgings
about which the owners of houses rarely trouble themselves, and where
they never make the smallest repairs, because they are always sure of
renting them out just as they are. The floor, laid in bricks, was going
to pieces; and a number of bricks were loose, and shaking in their
layers of cement. The ceiling was cracked, and fell off in scales; while
all along the walls it was blackened by flaring tallow-candles. The
papering, a greasy, dirty gray paper, preserved the fingermarks of all
the previous occupants of the room from the time it had first been hung.
The furniture, also, was in keeping with the room,--a walnut bedstead
with faded calico curtains, a chest of drawers, a table, two chairs, and
a miserable arm-chair; that was all.

A short curtain hung before the window. By the side of the bed was