nailing up the last brackets, and three men were lighting the rooms.

"It takes a hundred and twenty wax-candles," said Braschon.

"A bill of two hundred francs at Trudon's," said Madame Cesar, whose
murmurs were checked by a glance from the chevalier Birotteau.

"Your ball will be magnificent, Monsieur le chevalier," said Braschon.

Birotteau whispered to himself, "Flatterers already! The Abbe Loraux
urged me not to fall into that net, but to keep myself humble. I shall
try to remember my origin."

Cesar did not perceive the meaning of the rich upholsterer's speech.
Braschon made a dozen useless attempts to get invitations for himself,
his wife, daughter, mother-in-law, and aunt. He called the perfumer
Monsieur le chevalier to the door-way, and then he departed his enemy.

The rehearsal began. Cesar, his wife, and Cesarine went out by the
shop-door and re-entered the house from the street. The entrance had
been remodelled in the grand style, with double doors, divided into
square panels, in the centre of which were architectural ornaments in
cast-iron, painted. This style of door, since become common in Paris,
was then a novelty. At the further end of the vestibule the staircase
went up in two straight flights, and between them was the space which
had given Cesar some uneasiness, and which was now converted into
a species of box, where it was possible to seat an old woman. The
vestibule, paved in black and white marble, with its walls painted to
resemble marble, was lighted by an antique lamp with four jets. The
architect had combined richness with simplicity. A narrow red carpet
relieved the whiteness of the stairs, which were polished with
pumice-stone. The first landing gave an entrance to the _entresol_; the
doors to each appartement were of the same character as the street-door,
but of finer work by a cabinet-maker.

The family reached the first floor and entered an ante-chamber in
excellent taste, spacious, parquetted, and simply decorated. Next came a
salon, with three windows on the street, in white and red, with
cornices of an elegant design which had nothing gaudy about them. On
a chimney-piece of white marble supported by columns were a number of
mantel ornaments chosen with taste; they suggested nothing to ridicule,
and were in keeping with the other details. A soft harmony prevailed
throughout the room, a harmony which artists alone know how to attain by
carrying uniformity of decoration into the min