rge pieces; the floor
seemed affected with the dry-rot; and the doors and windows were
so much warped and sprung, that it required an effort to close them.
The furniture was on a par with the rest.

"How everything does wear out!" sighed Mme. Fortin. "It isn't ten
years since I bought that furniture."

In point of fact it was over fifteen, and even then she had bought
it secondhanded, and almost unfit for use. The curtains retained
but a vague shade of their original color. The veneer was almost
entirely off the bedstead. Not a single lock was in order, whether
in the bureau or the secretary. The rug had become a nameless rag;
and the broken springs of the sofa, cutting through the threadbare
stuff, stood up threateningly like knife-blades.

The most sumptuous object was an enormous China stove, which
occupied almost one-half of the hall-dining-room. It could not be
used to make a fire; for it had no pipe. Nevertheless, Mme. Fortin
refused obstinately to take it out, under the pretext that it gave
such a comfortable appearance to the apartment. All this elegance
cost Maxence forty-five francs a month, and five francs for the
service; the whole payable in advance from the 1st to the 3d of
the month. If, on the 4th, a tenant came in without money, Mme.
Fortin squarely refused him his key, and invited him to seek
shelter elsewhere.

"I have been caught too often," she replied to those who tried to
obtain twenty-four hours' grace from her. "I wouldn't trust my
own father till the 5th, he who was a superior officer in Napoleon's
armies, and the very soul of honor."

It was chance alone which had brought Maxence, after the Commune,
to the Hotel des Folies; and he had not been there a week, before
he had fully made up his mind not to wear out Mme. Fortin's
furniture very long. He had even already found another and more
suitable lodging, when, about a year ago, a certain meeting on
the stairs had modified all his views, and lent a charm to his
apartment which he did not suspect.

As he was going out one morning to his office, he met on the very
landing a rather tall and very dark girl, who had just come
running up stairs. She passed before him like a flash, opened
the opposite door, and disappeared. But, rapid as the apparition
had been, it had left in Maxence's mind one of those impressions
which are never obliterated. He could not think of any thing
else the whole day; and after business-hours, instead