sed into silence.

Rosanette, as she walked up and down the room, continued:

"I am going to hurl a writ at this Arnoux of yours. Oh! I don't want
your assistance. I'll get legal advice."

Three days later, Delphine rushed abruptly into the room where her
mistress sat.

"Madame! madame! there's a man here with a pot of paste who has given me
a fright!"

Rosanette made her way down to the kitchen, and saw there a vagabond
whose face was pitted with smallpox. Moreover, one of his arms was
paralysed, and he was three fourths drunk, and hiccoughed every time he
attempted to speak.

This was Maitre Gautherot's bill-sticker. The objections raised against
the seizure having been overruled, the sale followed as a matter of
course.

For his trouble in getting up the stairs he demanded, in the first
place, a half-glass of brandy; then he wanted another favour, namely,
tickets for the theatre, on the assumption that the lady of the house
was an actress. After this he indulged for some minutes in winks, whose
import was perfectly incomprehensible. Finally, he declared that for
forty sous he would tear off the corners of the poster which he had
already affixed to the door below stairs. Rosanette found herself
referred to by name in it--a piece of exceptional harshness which showed
the spite of the Vatnaz.

She had at one time exhibited sensibility, and had even, while suffering
from the effects of a heartache, written to Beranger for his advice. But
under the ravages of life's storms, her spirit had become soured, for
she had been forced, in turn, to give lessons on the piano, to act as
manageress of a _table d'hote_, to assist others in writing for the
fashion journals, to sublet apartments, and to traffic in lace in the
world of light women, her relations with whom enabled her to make
herself useful to many persons, and amongst others to Arnoux. She had
formerly been employed in a commercial establishment.

There it was one of her functions to pay the workwomen; and for each of
them there were two livres, one of which always remained in her hands.
Dussardier, who, through kindness, kept the amount payable to a girl
named Hortense Baslin, presented himself one day at the cash-office at
the moment when Mademoiselle Vatnaz was presenting this girl's account,
1,682 francs, which the cashier paid her. Now, on the very day before
this, Dussardier had entered down the sum as 1,082 in the girl Baslin's
book. He asked to have i