rmer "cabinet," the vast apartment with
lofty windows of old stained glass. Mathieu could well remember
that room with its profuse and amusing display of "antiquities," old
brocades, old goldsmith's ware and old pottery, and its richly bound
books, and its famous modern pewters. And he remembered it also at a
later date, in the abandonment to which it had fallen, the aspect of
ruin which it had assumed, covered, as it was, with gray dust which
bespoke the slow crumbling of the home. And now he found it once more
superb and cheerful, renovated with healthier and more substantial
luxury by Ambroise, who had put masons and joiners and upholsterers into
it for a period of three months. The whole mansion now lived afresh,
more luxurious than ever, filled at winter-time with sounds of
festivity, enlivened by the laughter of four happy children, and the
blaze of a living fortune which effort and conquest ever renewed. And
it was no longer Seguin, the idler, the artisan of nothingness, whom
Mathieu came to see there, it was his own son Ambroise, a man of
creative energy, whose victory had been sought by the very forces of
life, which had made him triumph there, installed him as the master in
the home of the vanquished.

When Mathieu and Denis arrived Ambroise was absent, but was expected
home for lunch. They waited for him, and as the former again crossed
the ante-room the better to judge of some new arrangements that had been
made, he was surprised at being stopped by a lady who was sitting there
patiently, and whom he had not previously noticed.

"I see that Monsieur Froment does not recognize me," she said.

Mathieu made a vague gesture. The woman had a tall, plump figure, and
was certainly more than sixty years of age; but she evidently took care
of her person, and had a smiling mien, with a long, full face and
almost venerable white hair. One might have taken her for some worthy,
well-to-do provincial bourgeoise in full dress.

"Celeste," said she. "Celeste, Madame Seguin's former maid."

Thereupon he fully recognized her, but hid his stupefaction at finding
her so fortunately circumstanced at the close of her career. He had
imagined that she was buried in some sewer.

In a gay, placid way she proceeded to recount her happiness: "Oh! I am
very pleased," she said; "I had retired to Rougemont, my birth-place,
and I ended by there marrying a retired naval officer, who has a very
comfortable pension, not to speak of a li