On a Wednesday morning, early, toward the middle of spring, in the yea 16,--such was his mode of reckoning,--at the moment when the chevalie was putting on his old green-flowered damask dressing-gown, he heard despite the cotton in his ears, the light step of a young girl who wa running up the stairway. Presently three taps were discreetly struc upon the door; then, without waiting for any response, a handsome gir slipped like an eel into the room occupied by the old bachelor

"Ah! is it you, Suzanne?" said the Chevalier de Valois, withou discontinuing his occupation, which was that of stropping his razor "What have you come for, my dear little jewel of mischief?

"I have come to tell you something which may perhaps give you as muc pleasure as pain?

"Is it anything about Cesarine?

"Cesarine! much I care about your Cesarine!" she said with a saucy air half serious, half indifferent

This charming Suzanne, whose present comical performance was to exercis a great influence in the principal personages of our history, was work-girl at Madame Lardot's. One word here on the topography of th house. The wash-rooms occupied the whole of the ground floor. The littl courtyard was used to hang out on wire cords embroidered handkerchiefs collarets, capes, cuffs, frilled shirts, cravats, laces, embroidere dresses,--in short, all the fine linen of the best families of the town The chevalier assumed to know from the number of her capes in the was how the love-affairs of the wife of the prefect were going on. Thoug he guessed much from observations of this kind, the chevalier wa discretion itself; he was never betrayed into an epigram (he had plent of wit) which might have closed to him an agreeable salon. You ar therefore to consider Monsieur de Valois as a man of superior manners whose talents, like those of many others, were lost in a narrow sphere Only--for, after all, he was a man--he permitted himself certai penetrating glances which could make some women tremble; although the all loved him heartily as soon as they discovered the depth of hi discretion and the sympathy that he felt for their little weaknesses

The head woman, Madame Lardot's factotum, an old maid of forty-six hideous to behold, lived on the opposite side of the passage to th chevalier. Above them were the attics where the linen was dried i winter. Each apartment had two rooms,--one lighted from the street, th other from the courtyard. Beneath the chevalier's room there lived paralytic, Madame Lardot's grandfather, an old buccaneer named Grevin who had served under Admiral Simeuse in India, and was now stone-deaf As for Madame Lardot, who occupied the other lodging on the first floor she had so great a weakness for persons of condition that she may wel have been thought blind to the ways of the chevalier. To her, Monsieu de Valois was a despotic monarch who did right in all things. Had any o her workwomen been guilty of a happiness attributed to the chevalie she would have said, "He is so lovable!" Thus, though the house was o glass, like all provincial houses, it was discreet as a robber's cave

A born confidant to all the little intrigues of the work-rooms, th chevalier never passed the door, which usually stood open, withou giving something to his little ducks,--chocolate, bonbons, ribbons laces, gilt crosses, and such like trifles adored by grisettes consequently, the kind old gentleman was adored in return. Women have a instinct which enables them to divine the men who love them, who lik to be near them, and exact no payment for gallantries. In this respec women have the instinct of dogs, who in a mixed company will go straigh to the man to whom animals are sacred

The poor Chevalier de Valois retained from his former life the need o bestowing gallant protection, a quality of the seigneurs of othe days. Faithful to the system of the "petite maison," he liked to enric women,--the only beings who know how to receive, because they ca always return. But the poor chevalier could no longer ruin himself fo a mistress. Instead of the choicest bonbons wrapped in bank-bills, h gallantly presented paper-bags full of toffee. Let us say to the glor of Alencon that the toffee was accepted with more joy than la Duth ever showed at a gilt service or a fine equipage offered by the Comt d'Artois. All these grisettes fully understood the fallen majesty of th Chevalier de Valois, and they kept their private familiarities with hi a profound secret for his sake. If they were questioned about him i certain houses when they carried home the linen, they always spok respectfully of the chevalier, and made him out older than he reall was; they talked of him as a most respectable monsieur, whose life wa a flower of sanctity; but once in their own regions they perched on hi shoulders like so many parrots. He liked to be told the secrets whic washerwomen discover in the bosom of households, and day after day thes girls would tell him the cancans which were going the round of Alencon He called them his "petticoat gazettes," his "talking feuilletons. Never did Monsieur de Sartines have spies more intelligent and les expensive, or minions who showed more honor while displaying thei rascality of mind. So it may be said that in the mornings, whil breakfasting, the chevalier usually amused himself as much as the saint in heaven

Suzanne was one of his favorites, a clever, ambitious girl, made o the stuff of a Sophie Arnold, and handsome withal, as the handsomes courtesan invited by Titian to pose on black velvet for a model o Venus; although her face, fine about the eyes and forehead, degenerated lower down, into commonness of outline. Hers was a Norman beauty, fresh high-colored, redundant, the flesh of Rubens covering the muscles o the Farnese Hercules, and not the slender articulations of the Venus de Medici, Apollo's graceful consort

"Well, my child, tell me your great or your little adventure, whateve it is.

The particular point about the chevalier which would have made hi noticeable from Paris to Pekin, was the gentle paternity of his manne to grisettes. They reminded him of the illustrious operatic queens o his early days, whose celebrity was European during a good third of th eighteenth century. It is certain that the old gentleman, who had live in days gone by with that feminine nation now as much forgotten as man other great things,--like the Jesuits, the Buccaneers, the Abbes, an the Farmers-General,--had acquired an irresistible good-humor, a kindl ease, a laisser-aller devoid of egotism, the self-effacement o Jupiter with Alcmene, of the king intending to be duped, who casts hi thunderbolts to the devil, wants his Olympus full of follies, littl suppers, feminine profusions--but with Juno out of the way, be i understood

In spite of his old green damask dressing-gown and the bareness of th room in which he sat, where the floor was covered with a shabby tapestr in place of carpet, and the walls were hung with tavern-paper presentin the profiles of Louis XVI. and members of his family, traced among th branches of a weeping willow with other sentimentalities invented b royalism during the Terror,--in spite of his ruins, the chevalier trimming his beard before a shabby old toilet-table, draped wit trumpery lace, exhaled an essence of the eighteenth century. All th libertine graces of his youth reappeared; he seemed to have the wealt of three hundred thousand francs of debt, while his vis-a-vis waite before the door. He was grand,--like Berthier on the retreat fro Moscow, issuing orders to an army that existed no longer

"Monsieur le chevalier," replied Suzanne, drolly, "seems to me I needn' tell you anything; you've only to look.

And Suzanne presented a side view of herself which gave a sort o lawyer's comment to her words. The chevalier, who, you must know, was sly old bird, lowered his right eye on the grisette, still holding th razor at his throat, and pretended to understand

"Well, well, my little duck, we'll talk about that presently. But yo are rather previous, it seems to me.

"Why, Monsieur le chevalier, ought I to wait until my mother beats m and Madame Lardot turns me off? If I don't get away soon to Paris, shall never be able to marry here, where men are so ridiculous.

"It can't be helped, my dear; society is changing; women are just a much victims to the present state of things as the nobility themselves After political overturn comes the overturn of morals. Alas! before lon woman won't exist" (he took out the cotton-wool to arrange his ears) "she'll lose everything by rushing into sentiment; she'll wring he nerves; good-bye to all the good little pleasures of our time, desire without shame, accepted without nonsense." (He polished up the littl negroes' heads.) "Women had hysterics in those days to get their ends but now" (he began to laugh) "their vapors end in charcoal. In short marriage" (here he picked up his pincers to remove a hair) "will becom a thing intolerable; whereas it used to be so gay in my day! The reign of Louis XIV. and Louis XV.--remember this, my child--said farewell t the finest manners and morals ever known to the world.

"But, Monsieur le chevalier," said the grisette, "the matter no concerns the morals and honor of your poor little Suzanne, and I hop you won't abandon her.

"Abandon her!" cried the chevalier, finishing his hair; "I'd soone abandon my own name.

"Ah!" exclaimed Suzanne

"Now, listen to me, you little mischief," said the chevalier, sittin down on a huge sofa, formerly called a duchesse, which Madame Lardot ha been at some pains to find for him

He drew the magnificent Suzanne before him, holding her legs between hi knees. She let him do as he liked, although in the street she was offis enough to other men, refusing their familiarities partly from decoru and partly for contempt for their commonness. She now stood audaciousl in front of the chevalier, who, having fathomed in his day many othe mysteries in minds that were far more wily, took in the situation at single glance. He knew very well that no young girl would joke abou a real dishonor; but he took good care not to knock over the prett scaffolding of her lie as he touched it

"We slander ourselves," he said with inimitable craft; "we are a virtuous as that beautiful biblical girl whose name we bear; we ca always marry as we please, but we are thirsty for Paris, where charmin creatures--and we are no fool--get rich without trouble. We want to g and see if the great capital of pleasures hasn't some young Chevalier d Valois in store for us, with a carriage, diamonds, an opera-box, and s forth. Russians, Austrians, Britons, have millions on which we have a eye. Besides, we are patriotic; we want to help France in getting bac her money from the pockets of those gentry. Hey! hey! my dear littl devil's duck! it isn't a bad plan. The world you live in may cry out bit, but success justifies all things. The worst thing in this world my dear, is to be without money; that's our disease, yours and mine. No inasmuch as we have plenty of wit, we thought it would be a good thin to parade our dear little honor, or dishonor, to catch an old boy but that old boy, my dear heart, knows the Alpha and Omega of femal tricks,--which means that you could easier put salt on a sparrow's tai than to make me believe I have anything to do with your little affair Go to Paris, my dear; go at the cost of an old celibate, I won't preven it; in fact, I'll help you, for an old bachelor, Suzanne, is the natura money-box of a young girl. But don't drag me into the matter. Listen, m queen, you who know life pretty well; you would me great harm and giv me much pain,--harm, because you would prevent my marriage in a tow where people cling to morality; pain, because if you are in troubl (which I deny, you sly puss!) I haven't a penny to get you out of it I'm as poor as a church mouse; you know that, my dear. Ah! if I marr Mademoiselle Cormon, if I am once more rich, of course I would prefe you to Cesarine. You've always seemed to me as fine as the gold the gild on lead; you were made to be the love of a great seigneur. I thin you so clever that the trick you are trying to play off on me doesn' surprise me one bit; I expected it. You are flinging the scabbard afte the sword, and that's daring for a girl. It takes nerve and superio ideas to do it, my angel, and therefore you have won my respectfu esteem.

"Monsieur le chevalier, I assure you, you are mistaken, and--

She colored, and did not dare to say more. The chevalier, with a singl glance, had guessed and fathomed her whole plan

"Yes, yes! I understand: you want me to believe it," he said. "Well! do believe it. But take my advice: go to Monsieur du Bousquier. Haven' you taken linen there for the last six or eight months? I'm not askin what went on between you; but I know the man: he has immense conceit he is an old bachelor, and very rich; and he only spends a quarter o a comfortable income. If you are as clever as I suppose, you can go t Paris at his expense. There, run along, my little doe; go and twist hi round your finger. Only, mind this: be as supple as silk; at ever word take a double turn round him and make a knot. He is a man to fea scandal, and if he has given you a chance to put him in the pillory--i short, understand; threaten him with the ladies of the Maternit Hospital. Besides, he's ambitious. A man succeeds through his wife, an you are handsome and clever enough to make the fortune of a husband Hey! the mischief! you could hold your own against all the cour ladies.

Suzanne, whose mind took in at a flash the chevalier's last words was eager to run off to du Bousquier, but, not wishing to depart to abruptly, she questioned the chevalier about Paris, all the whil helping him to dress. The chevalier, however, divined her desire t be off, and favored it by asking her to tell Cesarine to bring up hi chocolate, which Madame Lardot made for him every morning. Suzanne the slipped away to her new victim, whose biography must here be given

Born of an old Alencon family, du Bousquier was a cross between th bourgeois and the country squire. Finding himself without means on th death of his father, he went, like other ruined provincials, to Paris On the breaking out of the Revolution he took part in public affairs In spite of revolutionary principles, which made a hobby of republica honesty, the management of public business in those days was by n means clean. A political spy, a stock-jobber, a contractor, a man wh confiscated in collusion with the syndic of a commune the property o emigres in order to sell them and buy them in, a minister, and a genera were all equally engaged in public business. From 1793 to 1799 d Bousquier was commissary of provisions to the French armies. He lived i a magnificent hotel and was one of the matadors of finance, did busines with Ouvrard, kept open house, and led the scandalous life of th period,--the life of a Cincinnatus, on sacks of corn harvested withou trouble, stolen rations, "little houses" full of mistresses, in whic were given splendid fetes to the Directors of the Republic

The citizen du Bousquier was one of Barras' familiars; he was on th best of terms with Fouche, stood very well with Bernadotte, and full expected to become a minister by throwing himself into the party whic secretly caballed against Bonaparte until Marengo. If it had not bee for Kellermann's charge and Desaix's death, du Bousquier would probabl have become a minister. He was one of the chief assistances of tha secret government whom Napoleon's luck send behind the scenes in 1793 (See "An Historical Mystery.") The unexpected victory of Marengo wa the defeat of that party who actually had their proclamations printe to return to the principles of the Montagne in case the First Consu succumbed

Convinced of the impossibility of Bonaparte's triumph, du Bousquie staked the greater part of his property on a fall in the Funds, and kep two couriers on the field of battle. The first started for Paris whe Melas' victory was certain; the second, starting four hours later brought the news of the defeat of the Austrians. Du Bousquier curse Kellermann and Desaix; he dared not curse Bonaparte, who might owe hi millions. This alternative of millions to be earned and present rui staring him in the face, deprived the purveyor of most of his faculties he became nearly imbecile for several days; the man had so abused hi health by excesses that when the thunderbolt fell upon him he had n strength to resist. The payment of his bills against the Excheque gave him some hopes for the future, but, in spite of all effort to ingratiate himself, Napoleon's hatred to the contractors who ha speculated on his defeat made itself felt; du Bousquier was left withou a sou. The immorality of his private life, his intimacy with Barras an Bernadotte, displeased the First Consul even more than his manoeuvre at the Bourse, and he struck du Bousquier's name from the list of th government contractors

Out of all his past opulence du Bousquier saved only twelve hundre francs a year from an investment in the Grand Livre, which he ha happened to place there by pure caprice, and which saved him fro penury. A man ruined by the First Consul interested the town of Alencon to which he now returned, where royalism was secretly dominant. D Bousquier, furious against Bonaparte, relating stories against him o his meanness, of Josephine's improprieties, and all the other scandalou anecdotes of the last ten years, was well received

About this time, when he was somewhere between forty and fifty, d Bousquier's appearance was that of a bachelor of thirty-six, of mediu height, plump as a purveyor, proud of his vigorous calves, with strongly marked countenance, a flattened nose, the nostrils garnishe with hair, black eyes with thick lashes, from which darted shrew glances like those of Monsieur de Talleyrand, though somewhat dulled He still wore republican whiskers and his hair very long; his hands adorned with bunches of hair on each knuckle, showed the power of hi muscular system in their prominent blue veins. He had the chest of th Farnese Hercules, and shoulders fit to carry the stocks. Such shoulder are seen nowadays only at Tortoni's. This wealth of masculine vigo counted for much in du Bousquier's relations with others. And yet i him, as in the chevalier, symptoms appeared which contrasted oddly wit the general aspect of their persons. The late purveyor had not the voic of his muscles. We do not mean that his voice was a mere thread, suc as we sometimes hear issuing from the mouth of these walruses; on th contrary, it was a strong voice, but stifled, an idea of which can b given only by comparing it with the noise of a saw cutting into soft an moistened wood,--the voice of a worn-out speculator

In spite of the claims which the enmity of the First Consul gav Monsieur du Bousquier to enter the royalist society of the province he was not received in the seven or eight families who composed th faubourg Saint-Germain of Alencon, among whom the Chevalier de Valoi was welcome. He had offered himself in marriage, through her notary to Mademoiselle Armande, sister of the most distinguished noble in th town; to which offer he received a refusal. He consoled himself as bes he could in the society of a dozen rich families, former manufacturer of the old point d'Alencon, owners of pastures and cattle, or merchant doing a wholesale business in linen, among whom, as he hoped, h might find a wealthy wife. In fact, all his hopes now converged t the perspective of a fortunate marriage. He was not without a certai financial ability, which many persons used to their profit. Like ruined gambler who advises neophytes, he pointed out enterprises an speculations, together with the means and chances of conducting them. H was thought a good administrator, and it was often a question of makin him mayor of Alencon; but the memory of his underhand jobbery stil clung to him, and he was never received at the prefecture. All th succeeding governments, even that of the Hundred Days, refused t appoint him mayor of Alencon,--a place he coveted, which, could he hav had it, would, he thought, have won him the hand of a certain old mai on whom his matrimonial views now turned

Du Bousquier's aversion to the Imperial government had thrown him a first into the royalist circles of Alencon, where he remained in spit of the rebuffs he received there; but when, after the first retur of the Bourbons, he was still excluded from the prefecture, tha mortification inspired him with a hatred as deep as it was secre against the royalists. He now returned to his old opinions, and becam the leader of the liberal party in Alencon, the invisible manipulator o elections, and did immense harm to the Restoration by the cleverness o his underhand proceedings and the perfidy of his outward behavior. D Bousquier, like all those who live by their heads only, carried on hi hatreds with the quiet tranquillity of a rivulet, feeble apparently but inexhaustible. His hatred was that of a negro, so peaceful that i deceived the enemy. His vengeance, brooded over for fifteen years, wa as yet satisfied by no victory, not even that of July, 1830

It was not without some private intention that the Chevalier de Valoi had turned Suzanne's designs upon Monsieur du Bousquier. The libera and the royalist had mutually divined each other in spite of the wid dissimulation with which they hid their common hope from the rest of th town. The two old bachelors were secretly rivals. Each had formed a pla to marry the Demoiselle Cormon, whom Monsieur de Valois had mentioned t Suzanne. Both, ensconced in their idea and wearing the armor of apparen indifference, awaited the moment when some lucky chance might delive the old maid over to them. Thus, if the two old bachelors had not bee kept asunder by the two political systems of which they each offere a living expression, their private rivalry would still have made the enemies. Epochs put their mark on men. These two individuals proved th truth of that axiom by the opposing historic tints that were visibl in their faces, in their conversation, in their ideas, and in thei clothes. One, abrupt, energetic, with loud, brusque manners, curt, rud speech, dark in tone, in hair, in look, terrible apparently, in realit as impotent as an insurrection, represented the republic admirably. Th other, gentle and polished, elegant and nice, attaining his ends by th slow and infallible means of diplomacy, faithful to good taste, was th express image of the old courtier regime

The two enemies met nearly every evening on the same ground. The wa was courteous and benign on the side of the chevalier; but du Bousquie showed less ceremony on his, though still preserving the outwar appearances demanded by society, for he did not wish to be driven fro the place. They themselves fully understood each other; but in spite o the shrewd observation which provincials bestow on the petty interest of their own little centre, no one in the town suspected the rivalr of these two men. Monsieur le Chevalier de Valois occupied vantage-ground: he had never asked for the hand of Mademoiselle Cormon whereas du Bousquier, who entered the lists soon after his rejection b the most distinguished family in the place, had been refused. But th chevalier believed that his rival had still such strong chances o success that he dealt him this coup de Jarnac with a blade (namely Suzanne) that was finely tempered for the purpose. The chevalier ha cast his plummet-line into the waters of du Bousquier; and, as we shal see by the sequel, he was not mistaken in any of his conjectures

Suzanne tripped with a light foot from the rue du Cours, by the rue d la Porte de Seez and the rue du Bercail, to the rue du Cygne, where about five years earlier, du Bousquier had bought a little house buil of gray Jura stone, which is something between Breton slate an Norman granite. There he established himself more comfortably than an householder in town; for he had managed to preserve certain furnitur and decorations from the days of his splendor. But provincial manner and morals obscured, little by little, the rays of this falle Sardanapalus; these vestiges of his former luxury now produced th effect of a glass chandelier in a barn. Harmony, that bond of all work human or divine, was lacking in great things as well as in little ones The stairs, up which everybody mounted without wiping their feet, wer never polished; the walls, painted by some wretched artisan of th neighborhood, were a terror to the eye; the stone mantel-piece ill-carved, "swore" with the handsome clock, which was further degrade by the company of contemptible candlesticks. Like the period whic du Bousquier himself represented, the house was a jumble of dirt an magnificence. Being considered a man of leisure, du Bousquier led th same parasite life as the chevalier; and he who does not spend hi income is always rich. His only servant was a sort of Jocrisse, a lad o the neighborhood, rather a ninny, trained slowly and with difficulty t du Bousquier's requirements. His master had taught him, as he might a orang-outang, to rub the floors, dust the furniture, black his boots brush his coats, and bring a lantern to guide him home at night i the weather were cloudy, and clogs if it rained. Like many other huma beings, this lad hadn't stuff enough in him for more than one vice; h was a glutton. Often, when du Bousquier went to a grand dinner, he woul take Rene to wait at table; on such occasions he made him take off hi blue cotton jacket, with its big pockets hanging round his hips, an always bulging with handkerchiefs, clasp-knives, fruits, or a handful o nuts, and forced him to put on a regulation coat. Rene would then stuf his fill with the other servants. This duty, which du Bousquier ha turned into a reward, won him the most absolute discretion from th Breton servant

"You here, mademoiselle!" said Rene to Suzanne when she entered "'t'isn't your day. We haven't any linen for the wash, tell Madam Lardot.

"Old stupid!" said Suzanne, laughing

The pretty girl went upstairs, leaving Rene to finish his porringer o buckwheat in boiled milk. Du Bousquier, still in bed, was revolving i his mind his plans of fortune; for ambition was all that was lef to him, as to other men who have sucked dry the orange of pleasure Ambition and play are inexhaustible; in a well-organized man th passions which proceed from the brain will always survive the passion of the heart

"Here am I," said Suzanne, sitting down on the bed and jangling th curtain-rings back along the rod with despotic vehemence

"Quesaco, my charmer?" said the old bachelor, sitting up in bed

"Monsieur," said Suzanne, gravely, "you must be astonished to see m here at this hour; but I find myself in a condition which obliges me no to care for what people may say about it.

"What does all that mean?" said du Bousquier, crossing his arms

"Don't you understand me?" said Suzanne. "I know," she continued, makin a pretty little face, "how ridiculous it is in a poor girl to come an nag at a man for what he thinks a mere nothing. But if you really kne me, monsieur, if you knew all that I am capable of for a man who woul attach himself to me as much as I'm attached to you, you would neve repent having married me. Of course it isn't here, in Alencon, tha I should be of service to you; but if we went to Paris, you would se where I could lead a man with your mind and your capacities; and jus at this time too, when they are remaking the government from top to toe So--between ourselves, be it said--_is_ what has happened a misfortune Isn't it rather a piece of luck, which will pay you well? Who and wha are you working for now?

"For myself, of course!" cried du Bousquier, brutally

"Monster! you'll never be a father!" said Suzanne, giving a tone o prophetic malediction to the words

"Come, don't talk nonsense, Suzanne," replied du Bousquier; "I reall think I am still dreaming.

"How much more reality do you want?" cried Suzanne, standing up

Du Bousquier rubbed his cotton night-cap to the top of his head with rotatory motion, which plainly indicated the tremendous fermentation o his ideas

"He actually believes it!" thought Suzanne, "and he's flattered. Heaven how easy it is to gull men!

"Suzanne, what the devil must I do? It is so extraordinary--I, wh thought--The fact is that--No, no, it can't be--

"What? you can't marry me?

"Oh! as for that, no; I have engagements.

"With Mademoiselle Armande or Mademoiselle Cormon, who have bot refused you? Listen to me, Monsieur du Bousquier, my honor doesn' need gendarmes to drag you to the mayor's office. I sha'n't lack fo husbands, thank goodness! and I don't want a man who can't appreciat what I'm worth. But some day you'll repent of the way you are behaving for I tell you now that nothing on earth, neither gold nor silver, wil induce me to return the good thing that belongs to you, if you refuse t accept it to-day.

"But, Suzanne, are you sure?

"Oh, monsieur!" cried the grisette, wrapping her virtue round her, "wha do you take me for? I don't remind you of the promises you made me which have ruined a poor young girl whose only blame was to have as muc ambition as love.

Du Bousquier was torn with conflicting sentiments, joy, distrust calculation. He had long determined to marry Mademoiselle Cormon for the Charter, on which he had just been ruminating, offered to hi ambition, through the half of her property, the political career of deputy. Besides, his marriage with the old maid would put him sociall so high in the town that he would have great influence. Consequently the storm upraised by that malicious Suzanne drove him into the wildes embarrassment. Without this secret scheme, he would have married Suzann without hesitation. In which case, he could openly assume the leadershi of the liberal party in Alencon. After such a marriage he would, o course, renounce the best society and take up with the bourgeois clas of tradesmen, rich manufacturers and graziers, who would certainly carr him in triumph as their candidate. Du Bousquier already foresaw the Lef side

This solemn deliberation he did not conceal; he rubbed his hands ove his head, displacing the cap which covered its disastrous baldness Suzanne, meantime, like all those persons who succeed beyond thei hopes, was silent and amazed. To hide her astonishment, she assumed th melancholy pose of an injured girl at the mercy of her seducer; inwardl she was laughing like a grisette at her clever trick

"My dear child," said du Bousquier at length, "I'm not to be taken i with such _bosh_, not I!

Such was the curt remark which ended du Bousquier's meditation. H plumed himself on belonging to the class of cynical philosophers wh could never be "taken in" by women,--putting them, one and all, unto th same category, as _suspicious_. These strong-minded persons are usuall weak men who have a special catechism in the matter of womenkind. T them the whole sex, from queens of France to milliners, are essentiall depraved, licentious, intriguing, not a little rascally, fundamentall deceitful, and incapable of thought about anything but trifles. To them women are evil-doing queens, who must be allowed to dance and sing an laugh as they please; they see nothing sacred or saintly in them, no anything grand; to them there is no poetry in the senses, only gros sensuality. Where such jurisprudence prevails, if a woman is no perpetually tyrannized over, she reduces the man to the condition of slave. Under this aspect du Bousquier was again the antithesis of th chevalier. When he made his final remark, he flung his night-cap to th foot of the bed, as Pope Gregory did the taper when he fulminate an excommunication; Suzanne then learned for the first time that d Bousquier wore a toupet covering his bald spot

"Please to remember, Monsieur du Bousquier," she replied majestically "that in coming here to tell you of this matter I have done my duty remember that I have offered you my hand, and asked for yours; bu remember also that I behaved with the dignity of a woman who respect herself. I have not abased myself to weep like a silly fool; I have no insisted; I have not tormented you. You now know my situation. You mus see that I cannot stay in Alencon: my mother would beat me, and Madam Lardot rides a hobby of principles; she'll turn me off. Poor work-gir that I am, must I go to the hospital? must I beg my bread? No! I' rather throw myself into the Brillante or the Sarthe. But isn't i better that I should go to Paris? My mother could find an excuse to sen me there,--an uncle who wants me, or a dying aunt, or a lady who send for me. But I must have some money for the journey and for--you kno what.

This extraordinary piece of news was far more startling to du Bousquie than to the Chevalier de Valois. Suzanne's fiction introduced suc confusion into the ideas of the old bachelor that he was literall incapable of sober reflection. Without this agitation and without hi inward delight (for vanity is a swindler which never fails of its dupe) he would certainly have reflected that, supposing it were true, girl like Suzanne, whose heart was not yet spoiled, would have died thousand deaths before beginning a discussion of this kind and askin for money

"Will you really go to Paris, then?" he said

A flash of gayety lighted Suzanne's gray eyes as she heard these words but the self-satisfied du Bousquier saw nothing

"Yes, monsieur," she said

Du Bousquier then began bitter lamentations: he had the last payment to make on his house; the painter, the mason, the upholsterers mus be paid. Suzanne let him run on; she was listening for the figures. D Bousquier offered her three hundred francs. Suzanne made what is calle on the stage a false exit; that is, she marched toward the door

"Stop, stop! where are you going?" said du Bousquier, uneasily. "Thi is what comes of a bachelor's life!" thought he. "The devil take me i I ever did anything more than rumple her collar, and, lo and behold! sh makes THAT a ground to put her hand in one's pocket!

"I'm going, monsieur," replied Suzanne, "to Madame Granson, th treasurer of the Maternity Society, who, to my knowledge, has saved man a poor girl in my condition from suicide.

"Madame Granson!

"Yes," said Suzanne, "a relation of Mademoiselle Cormon, the presiden of the Maternity Society. Saving your presence, the ladies of the tow have created an institution to protect poor creatures from destroyin their infants, like that handsome Faustine of Argentan who was execute for it three years ago.

"Here, Suzanne," said du Bousquier, giving her a key, "open tha secretary, and take out the bag you'll find there: there's about si hundred francs in it; it is all I possess.

"Old cheat!" thought Suzanne, doing as he told her, "I'll tell abou your false toupet.

She compared du Bousquier with that charming chevalier, who had give her nothing, it is true, but who had comprehended her, advised her, an carried all grisettes in his heart

"If you deceive me, Suzanne," cried du Bousquier, as he saw her with he hand in the drawer, "you--

"Monsieur," she said, interrupting him with ineffable impertinence "wouldn't you have given me money if I had asked for it?

Recalled to a sense of gallantry, du Bousquier had a remembrance of pas happiness and grunted his assent. Suzanne took the bag and departed after allowing the old bachelor to kiss her, which he did with an ai that seemed to say, "It is a right which costs me dear; but it is bette than being harried by a lawyer in the court of assizes as the seducer o a girl accused of infanticide.

Suzanne hid the sack in a sort of gamebag made of osier which she had o her arm, all the while cursing du Bousquier for his stinginess; for on thousand francs was the sum she wanted. Once tempted of the devil t desire that sum, a girl will go far when she has set foot on the path o trickery. As she made her way along the rue du Bercail, it came into he head that the Maternity Society, presided over by Mademoiselle Cormon might be induced to complete the sum at which she had reckoned he journey to Paris, which to a grisette of Alencon seemed considerable Besides, she hated du Bousquier. The latter had evidently feared revelation of his supposed misconduct to Madame Granson; and Suzanne, a the risk of not getting a penny from the society, was possessed wit the desire, on leaving Alencon, of entangling the old bachelor in th inextricable meshes of a provincial slander. In all grisettes there i something of the malevolent mischief of a monkey. Accordingly, Suzann now went to see Madame Granson, composing her face to an expression o the deepest dejection