Kitabı oxu: «The Mysteries of Paris, Volume 4 of 6», səhifə 7

The unfortunate children had neglected putting out the lantern.

"I am coming," added the widow, in a terrible voice; "I am coming to you, you little spies!"

Such were the events which passed in the Isle du Ravageur on the evening of the day before that on which Madame Séraphin was to take Fleur-de-Marie thither.

CHAPTER VII
A LODGING-HOUSE

The Passage de la Brasserie, a dark street, narrow, and but little known, although situated in the centre of Paris, runs at one end into the Rue Traversière St. Honoré, and at the other into the Cour St. Guillaume.

Towards the middle of this damp thoroughfare, muddy, dark, and unwholesome, and where the sun but rarely penetrates, there was a furnished house (commonly called a garni, lodging-house, in consequence of the low price of the apartments). On a miserable piece of paper might be read, "Chambers and small rooms furnished." To the right hand, in a dark alley, was the door of a store, not less obscure, in which constantly resided the principal tenant of this garni.

Father Micou was ostensibly a dealer in old metal ("marine stores"), but secretly purchased and received stolen metal, iron, lead, brass, and tin. When we mention that Father Micou was connected in business and friendship with the Martial family, we give a tolerable idea of his morality. The tie that binds – the sort of affiliation, the mysterious communion, which connects – the malefactors of Paris, is at once curious and fearful. The common prisons are the great centres whence flow, and to which reflow, incessantly those waves of corruption which gradually gain on the capital, and leave there such pernicious waifs and strays.

Father Micou was a stout man, about fifty years of age, with a mean and cunning countenance, a mulberry nose, and wine-flushed cheeks. He wore a fur cap and an old green long-skirted coat. Over his small stove, near which he was standing, there was a board fastened to the wall, and bearing a row of figures, to which were affixed the keys of the chambers of the absent lodgers. The panes of glass in the door which opened on to the street were so painted that from the outside no one could see what was going on within.

The whole of this extensive store was very dark. From the damp walls there hung rusty chains of all sizes; and the floor was strewed with iron and other metals. Three blows struck at the door in a particular way attracted the attention of the landlord, huckster, receiver.

"Come in!" he cried.

It was Nicholas, the son of the felon's widow. He was very pale, his features looked even more evil than they did on the previous evening, and yet he feigned a kind of overgaiety during the following conversation. (This scene takes place on the day after his quarrel with. Martial.)

"Ah, is it you, my fine fellow?" said Micou, cordially.

"Yes, Father Micou, I have come to see you on a trifle of business."

"Then shut the door, – shut the door."

"My dog and cart are there outside with the stuff."

"What do you bring me, double tripe (sheet lead)?"

"No, Father Micou."

"What is it, scrapings? but no, you're too downy now, you've left off work. Perhaps it is a bit of hard (iron)?"

"No, Daddy Micou, it's some flap (sheet copper). There must be, at least, a hundred and fifty pounds weight, as much as my dog could stagger along with."

"Go and fetch the flap, and let's weigh it."

"You must lend a hand, daddy, for I've hurt my arm."

And, at the recollection of his contest with his brother Martial, the ruffian's features expressed, at once, the resentment of hatred and savage joy, as if his vengeance were already satisfied.

"What's the matter with your arm, my man?"

"Nothing, – only a sprain."

"You must heat an iron in the fire, and plunge it red-hot into the water, then put your arm in the water as hot as you can bear it. It is an iron-dealer's remedy, but none the worse for that."

"Thank ye, Father Micou."

"Go and fetch the flap, and I'll come and help you, idle-bones."

At twice the copper was brought out of the cart, drawn by an enormous dog, and conveyed into the shop.

"That cart of yours is a good idea," said the worthy Micou, as he adjusted the wooden frames of an enormous pair of scales that hung from a beam in the ceiling.

"Yes; when I've anything to bring, I put my dog and cart into the punt, and harness them as we come along. A hackney-coach might, perhaps, tell a tale, but my dog never chatters."

"And they're all pretty well at home, – eh?" inquired the receiver, weighing the copper; "mother and sister, both pretty bobbish?"

"Yes, Father Micou."

"And the little uns?"

"Yes, the little uns, too. And your nephew, André, where is he?"

"Don't mention him; he was out on a spree yesterday. Barbillon and Gros-Boiteux brought him back this morning. He is out for a walk now towards the General Post-office in the Rue St. Jacques Rousseau. And your brother, Martial, is he just such a rum un as ever?"

"Ma foi! I don't know."

"Don't know?"

"No," replied Nicholas, assuming an indifferent air; "we have seen nothing of him for the last two days. Perhaps he's gone poaching in the woods again; unless his boat, which was very, very old, has sunk in the river, with him in it."

"At which you would not be dreadfully affected, you bad lot, for you can't bear your brother, I know."

"True; we have strange likes and dislikes. How many pounds of metal d'ye make?"

"You're right to a hair, just a hundred and fifty pounds, my lad."

"And you owe me – "

"Just thirty francs."

"Thirty francs! when copper is twenty sous a pound? Thirty francs!"

"Say thirty-five francs, and there's an end of the matter, or go to the devil with you! you, and your copper, and your dog, and your cart."

"But, Father Micou, you are really chiselling me down; that's not the right thing by no means."

"If you'll tell me how you came by your copper, I'll give you fifteen sous a pound for it."

"That's the old strain. You are all alike, a regular lot of cheats. How can you bear to 'do' your friends in this way? But that's not all; if I swap with you for some things, you ought to give me good measure."

"To a hair's turn. What do you want? Chains and hooks for your punts?"

"No, I want four or five sheets of stout iron, as if to line shutters with."

"I've just the thing, a quarter of an inch thick; a pistol-ball wouldn't go through it."

"Just what I want."

"What size?"

"Why, altogether about seven or eight feet square."

"Good, and what else?"

"Three bars of iron, from three to four feet long, and two inches square."

"I have just broken up an iron wicket; nothing can be better for you. What next?"

"Two strong hinges and a latch, so that I can open or shut an opening two feet square when I wish."

"A trap, you mean?"

"No, a valve."

"I don't understand what you can want with a valve."

"Never you mind; I know what I want."

"That's all right; you have only to choose; there's a heap of hinges. What's the next thing?"

"That's all."

"And not much, either."

"Get it all ready, Father Micou, and I'll take it as I come back; for I've got some other places to call at."

"With your cart? Why, you dog, I saw a bundle underneath. What, some little trifle you have taken from the world's wardrobe? Ah, you sly rogue!"

"Just as you say, Father Micou; but you don't deal in such things. Don't keep me waiting for the iron goods, for I must be back at the island before noon."

"I'll be ready. It is only eight, and, if you are not going far, come back in an hour, and you shall find everything prepared, – money and goods. Won't you take a drain?"

"Thank ye, I won't say no, for I think you owe it me."

Father Micou took from an old closet a bottle of brandy, a cracked glass, and a cup without a handle, and filled them.

"Here's to you, Daddy Micou!"

"And to you likewise, my boy, and the ladies at home!"

"Thank ye. And the lodging-house goes on well, eh?"

"Middling, – middling. I have always some lodgers for whom I am always fearing a visit from the commissary; but they pay in proportion."

"How d'ye mean?"

"Why, are you stupid? I sometimes lodge as I buy, and don't ask them for their passport, any more than I ask you for your bill of parcels."

"Good; but to them you let as dear as you have bought cheaply of me."

"I must look out. I have a cousin who has a handsome furnished house in the Rue St. Honoré. His wife is a milliner in a large way, and employs, perhaps, twenty needlewomen, either in the house, or having the work at home."

"I say, old boy, I dare say there's some pretty uns among 'em?"

"I believe you. There's two or three that I have seen bring home work sometimes, – my eyes, ain't they pretty, though? One little one in particular, who works at home, and is always a-laughing, and they calls her Rigolette, oh, my pippin, what a pity one ain't twenty years old all over again!"

"Halloa, daddy, how you are going it!"

"Oh, it's all right, my boy, – all right!"

"'Walker!' old boy. And you say your cousin – "

"Does uncommon well with his house, and, as it is the same number as that of the little Rigolette – "

"What, again?"

"Oh, it's all right and proper."

"'Walker!'"

"He won't have any lodgers but those who have passports and papers; but if any come who haven't got 'em, he sends me those customers."

"And they pays accordingly?"

"In course."

"But they are all in our line who haven't got their riglar papers?"

"By no manner of means! Why, very lately, my cousin sent me a customer, – devil burn me if I can make him out! Another drain?"

"Just one; the liquor's good. Here's t'ye again, Daddy Micou!"

"Here's to you again, my covey! I was saying that the other day my cousin sent me a customer whom I can't make out. Imagine a mother and daughter, who looked very queer and uncommon seedy; they had their whole kit in a pocket-handkerchief. Well, there warn't much to be expected out of this, for they had no papers, and they lodge by the fortnight; yet, since they've been here, they haven't moved any more than a dormouse. No men come to see them; and yet they're not bad-looking, if they weren't so thin and pale, particularly the daughter, about sixteen, – with such a pair of black eyes, – oh, such eyes!"

"Halloa, dad! You're off again. What do these women do?"

"I tell you I don't know; they must be respectable, and yet, as they receive letters without any address, it looks queer."

"What do you mean?"

"They sent, this morning, my nephew André to the Poste-Restante to inquire for a letter addressed to 'Madame X. Z.' The letter was expected from Normandy, from a town called Aubiers. They wrote that down on paper, so that André might get the letter by giving these particulars. You see, it does not look quite the thing for women to take the name of 'X.' and 'Z.' And yet they never have any male visitors."

"They won't pay you."

"Oh, my fine fellow, they don't catch an old bird like me with chaff. They took a room without a fireplace, and I made them pay the twenty francs down for the fortnight. They are, perhaps, ill, for they have not been down for the last two days. It is not indigestion that ails them, for I don't think they have cooked anything since they came here."

"If you had all such customers, Father Micou – "

"Oh, they go and come. If I lodge people without passports, why, I also have different people. I have now two travelling gents, a postman, the leader of the band at the Café des Aveugles, and a lady of fortune, – all most respectable persons, such as save the reputation of a house, if the commissary is inclined to look a little too closely into things; they are not night-lodgers, but tenants of the broad sunshine."

"When it comes into your alley, Father Micou."

"You're a wag. Another drain, yes, just one more."

"Well, it must be my last, for then I must cut. By the way, doesn't Robin, the Gros-Boiteux, lodge here still?"

"Yes, up-stairs, on the same landing as the mother and daughter. He's pretty nearly run through his money he earned in gaol."

"I say, mind your eye, – he's outlawed."

"I know it, but I can't get rid of him. I think he's got something in hand, for little Tortillard came here the other night along with Barbillon. I'm afraid he'll do something to my lodgers, so, when his fortnight is up, I shall bundle him, telling him his room is taken for an ambassador, or the husband of Madame Saint-Ildefonse, my independent lady."

"An independent lady?"

"I believe you! Three rooms and a cabinet in the front, – nothing less, – newly furnished, to say nothing of an attic for her servant. Eighty francs a month, and paid in advance by her uncle, to whom she gives one of her spare rooms when he comes up from the country. But I believe his country-house is about the Rue Vivienne, or the Rue St. Honoré."

"I twig! She's independent because the old fellow pays."

"Hush! Here's her maid."

A middle-aged woman, wearing a white apron of very doubtful cleanliness, entered the dealer's warehouse.

"What can I do for you, Madame Charles?"

"Father Micou, is your nephew within?"

"He has gone to the post-office; but I expect him in immediately."

"M. Badinot wishes him to take this letter to its address instantly. There's no answer, but it is in great haste."

"In a quarter of an hour he will be on his way thither, madame."

"He must make great haste."

"He shall, be assured."

The servant went away.

"Is she the maid of one of your lodgers, Father Micou?"

"She is the bonne of my independent lady, Madame Saint-Ildefonse. But M. Badinot is her uncle; he came from the country yesterday," said the respectable Micou, who was looking at the letter, and then added, reading the address, "Look, now, what grand acquaintances! Why, I told you they were high folks; he writes to a viscount."

"Oh, bah!"

"See here, then, 'To Monsieur the Vicomte de Saint-Remy, Rue de Chaillot. In great haste. Private.' I hope, when we lodge independent persons who have uncles who write to viscounts, we may allow some few of our other lodgers higher up in the house to be without passports, eh?"

"I believe you. Well, then, Father Micou, we shall soon be back. I shall fasten my dog and cart to your door, and carry what I have; so be ready with the goods and the money, so that I may cut at once."

"I'll be ready. Four good iron plates, each two feet square, three bars of iron two feet long, and two hinges for your valve. This valve seems very odd to me; but it's no affair of mine. Is that all?"

"Yes, and my money?"

"Oh, you shall have your money. But now I look at you in the light – now I get a good view of you – "

"Well?"

"I don't know – but you seem as if something was the matter."

"I do?"

"Yes."

"Oh, nonsense! If anything ails me it is that I'm hungry."

"You're hungry? Like enough; but it rather looks as if you wanted to appear very lively, whilst all the while there's something that worries you; and it must be something, for it ain't a trifle that puts you out."

"I tell you you're mistaken, Father Micou," said Nicholas, shuddering.

"Why, you quite tremble!"

"It's my arm that pains me."

"Well, don't forget my prescription, that will cure you."

"Thank ye, I'll soon be back." And the ruffian went on his way.

The receiver, after having concealed the lumps of copper behind his counter, occupied himself in collecting the various things which Nicholas had requested, when another individual entered his shop. It was a man about fifty years of age, with a keen, sagacious face, a thick pair of gray whiskers, and gold spectacles. He was extremely well dressed; the wide sleeves of his brown paletot, with black velvet cuffs, showing his hands covered with thin coloured kid gloves, and his boots bore evidence of having been on the previous evening highly polished.

It was M. Badinot, the independent lady's uncle, that Madame Saint-Ildefonse, whose social position formed the pride and security of Père Micou. The reader may, perchance, recollect that M. Badinot, the former attorney, struck off that respectable list, then a Chevalier d'Industrie, and agent in equivocal matters, was the spy of Baron de Graün, and had given that diplomatist many and very precise particulars as to many personages connected with this tale.

"Madame Charles has just given you a letter to send?" said M. Badinot, to the dealer in et ceteras.

"Yes, sir; my nephew I expect every moment, and he shall go directly."

"No, give me the letter again, I have changed my mind. I shall go myself to the Comte de Saint-Remy," said M. Badinot, pronouncing this aristocratic name very emphatically, and with much importance.

"Here's the letter, sir; have you any other commission?"

"No, Père Micou," said M. Badinot, with a protecting air, "but I have something to scold you about."

"Me, sir?"

"Very much, indeed."

"About what, sir?"

"Why, Madame de Saint-Ildefonse pays very expensively for your first floor. My niece is a lodger to whom the greatest respect ought to be paid; she came highly recommended to your house, and, having a great aversion to the noise of carriages, she hoped she should be here as if she were in the country."

"So she is; it is quite like a village here. You ought to know, sir, – you who live in the country, – this is a real village."

"A village! Very like, indeed! Why, there is always such an infernal din in the house."

"Still, it is impossible to find a quieter house. Above the lady, there is the leader of the band at the Café des Aveugles, and a gentleman traveller; over that, another traveller; over that – "

"I am not alluding to those persons; they are very quiet, and appear very respectable. My niece has no fault to find with them; but in the fourth, there is a stout lame man, whom Madame de Saint-Ildefonse met yesterday tipsy on the stairs; he was shrieking like a savage, and she nearly had a fit, she was so much alarmed. If you think that, with such lodgers, your house resembles a village – "

"Sir, I assure you I only wait the opportunity to turn this stout lame man out-of-doors; he has paid his last fortnight in advance, otherwise I should already have turned him out."

"You should not have taken in such a lodger."

"But, except him, I hope madame has nothing to complain of. There is a twopenny postman, who is the cream of honest fellows, and overhead, beside the chamber of the stout lame man, a lady and daughter, who do not move any more than dormice."

"I repeat, Madame de Saint-Ildefonse only complains of this stout lame man, who is the nightmare of the house; and I warn you that, if you keep such a fellow in your house, you will find all your respectable lodgers leave you."

"I will send him away, you may be assured. I have no wish to keep him."

"You will only do what's right, for else your house will be forsaken."

"Which will not answer my purpose at all; so, sir, consider the stout lame man as gone, for he has only four more days to stay here."

"Which is four days too many; but it is your affair. At the first outbreak, my niece leaves your house."

"Be assured, sir – "

"It is all for your own interest, – and look to it, for I am not a man of many words," said M. Badinot, with a patronising air, and he went out.

Need we say that this female and her young daughter, who lived so lonely, were the two victims of the notary's cupidity? We will now conduct the reader to the miserable retreat in which they lived.

CHAPTER VIII
THE VICTIMS OF MISPLACED CONFIDENCE. ⁶

Let the reader picture to himself a small chamber on the fourth floor of the wretched house in the Passage de la Brasserie. Scarcely could the faint glimmers of early morn force their pale rays through the narrow casements forming the only window to this small apartment; the three panes of glass that apology for a window contained were cracked and almost the colour of horn, a dingy and torn yellow paper adhered in some places to the walls, while from each corner of the cracked ceiling hung long and thick cobwebs; and to complete the appearance of wretchedness so evident in this forlorn spot, the flooring was broken away, and, in many places, displayed the beams which supported it, as well as the lath and plaster forming the ceiling of the room beneath. A deal table, a chair, an old trunk, without hinges or lock, a truckle-bed, with a wooden headboard, covered by a thin mattress, coarse sheets of unbleached cloth, and an old rug, – such was the entire furniture of this wretched chamber.

On the chair sat the Baroness de Fermont, and in the bed reposed her daughter, Claire de Fermont. Such were the names of these two victims of the villainy of Jacques Ferrand. Possessing but one bed, the mother and child took it by turns to sleep. Too much uneasiness and too many bitter cares prevented Madame de Fermont from enjoying the blessing of repose; but her daughter's young and elastic nature easily yielded to the natural impulse which made her willingly seek in short slumbers a temporary respite from the misery by which she was surrounded during her waking hours. At the present moment she was sleeping peacefully.

Nothing could be imagined more touchingly affecting than the picture of misery imposed by the avarice of the notary on two females hitherto accustomed to every comfort, and surrounded in their native city by that respect which is ever felt for honourable and honoured families.

Madame de Fermont was about six and thirty years of age, with a countenance at once expressive of gentleness and intelligence, mingled with an indescribably noble and majestic air. Her features, which had once boasted extreme beauty, were now pale and careworn; her dark hair was separated on her forehead, and formed two thick, lustrous bandeaux, which, after shading her pallid countenance, were twisted in with her back hair, whose tresses the hand of sorrow had already mingled with gray. Dressed in an old shabby black dress, patched and pieced in various places, Madame de Fermont, her head supported by her hand, was surveying her child with looks of ineffable tenderness.

Claire was but sixteen years of age, and her gentle and innocent countenance, thin and sorrowful as that of her mother, looked still more pallid as contrasted with the coarse, unbleached linen which covered her bolster, filled only with sawdust. The once brilliant complexion of the poor girl had sickened beneath the privations she endured; and, as she slept, the long, dark lashes which fringed her large and lustrous eyes stood out almost unnaturally upon her sunken cheek; the once fresh and rosy lips were now dry, cracked, and colourless, yet, half opened as they were, they displayed the faultless regularity of her pearly teeth.

The harsh contact of the rough linen which covered her bed had caused a temporary redness about the neck, shoulders, and arms of the poor girl, whose fine and delicate skin was marbled and spotted by the friction both of the miserable sheets and rug. A sensation of uneasiness and discomfort seemed to pervade even her slumbers; for the clearly defined eyebrows, occasionally contracted, as though the sleeper were under the influence of an uneasy dream, and the pained expression observable on the features, foretold the deadly nature of the disease at work within.

Madame de Fermont had long ceased to find relief in tears, but, like her suffering daughter, she found that weakness, languor, and dejection, which is ever the precursor of severe illness, rapidly and daily increasing; but, unwilling to alarm Claire, and wishing, if possible, even to conceal the frightful truth from herself, the wretched mother struggled against the first approaches of her malady, while, from a similar feeling of devotion and affection, Claire sought to hide from her parent the extreme suffering she herself experienced.

To attempt to describe the tortures endured by the tender mother, as, during the greater part of the night, she watched her slumbering child, her thoughts alternately dwelling on the past, the present, and the future, would be to paint the sharpest, bitterest, wildest agony that ever crossed the brain of a loving and despairing mother; to give alternately her reminiscences of bygone happiness, her shuddering dread of impending evil, her fearful anticipations, her bitter regrets, and utter despondency, mingled with bursts of frenzied rage against the author of all her sorrows, vain supplications, eager, earnest prayers, ending at last fearfully and dreadfully in openly expressed mistrust of the omnipotence and justice of the Great Being who could thus remain insensible to the cry which arose from a mother's breaking heart, to that holy plea whose sound should reach the throne of grace, – "Pity, pity, for my child!"

"How cold she is!" cried the poor mother, lightly touching with her icy hand the equally chill arm of her child; "how very, very cold! and scarcely an hour ago just as hot! Alas, 'tis the cruel fever which has seized upon her! Happily the dear creature is as yet unconscious of her malady! Gracious heaven, she is becoming cold as death itself! What shall I do to bring warmth to her poor frame? The bed-coverings are so slight! A good thought! I will throw my old shawl over her. But no, no! I dare not remove it from the door over which I have hung it, lest those men so brutally intoxicated should endeavour, as they did yesterday, to look into the room through the disjointed panels or openings in the framework.

"What a horrible place we have got into! Oh, if I had but known by what description of persons it was inhabited before I paid the fortnight in advance! Certainly, we would not have remained here. But, alas, I knew it not; and when we have no vouchers for our respectability, it is so difficult to obtain furnished lodgings. Who could ever have thought I should have been at a loss, – I who quitted Angers in my own carriage, deeming it unfit my daughter should travel by any public conveyance? How could I have imagined that I should experience any difficulty in obtaining every requisite testimonial of my honour and honesty?"

Then bursting into a fit of anger, she exclaimed, "'Tis too, too hard, that because this unprincipled, hard-hearted notary chooses to strip us of all our possessions, I have no means of punishing him! Yes; had I money I might sue him legally for his misconduct. But would not that be to bring obloquy and contempt on the memory of my good, my noble-minded brother; to have it publicly proclaimed that he consummated his ruin by taking away his own life, after having squandered my fortune and that of my child; to hear him accused of reducing us to want and wretchedness? Oh, never, – never! Still, however dear and sacred is the memory of a brother, should not the welfare of my child be equally so?

"And wherefore, too, should I give rise to useless tales of family misery, unprovided as I am with any proofs against the notary? Oh, it is, indeed, a cruel, – a most cruel case. Sometimes, too, when irritated, goaded by my reflections almost to madness, I find myself indulging in bitter plaints against my brother, and think his conduct more culpable than even the notary's, as though it were any alleviation of my woes to have two names to execrate instead of one. But quickly do I blush at my own base and unworthy suspicions of one so good, so honourable, so noble-minded as my poor brother! This infamous notary knows not all the fearful consequences of his dishonesty. He fancies he has but taken from us our worldly goods, while he has plunged a dagger in the hearts of two innocent, unoffending victims, condemned by his villainy to die by inches. Alas, I dare not breathe into the ear of my poor child the full extent of my fears, lest her young mind should be unable to support the blow!

"But I am ill, – very, very ill; a burning fever is in my veins; and 'tis only with the greatest energy and resolution I contrive to resist its approaches. But too certainly do I feel aware that the germs of a possibly mortal disease are in me. I am aware of its gaining ground hourly. My throat is parched, my head burns and throbs with racking pains. These symptoms are even more dangerous than I am willing to own even to myself. Merciful God! If I were to be ill, – seriously, fatally ill, – if I should die! But no, no!" almost shrieked Madame Fermont, with wild excitement; "I cannot, – I will not die! To leave Claire at sixteen years of age, alone, and without resource, in the midst of Paris! Impossible! Oh, no, I am not ill; I have mistaken the effects of sorrow, cold, and want of rest, for the precursory symptoms of illness. Any person similarly placed would have experienced the same. It is nothing, nothing worth noticing. There must be no weakness on my part. 'Tis by yielding to such dismal anticipations that one becomes really attacked by the very malady we dread. And besides, I have not time to be ill. Oh, no! On the contrary, I must immediately exert myself to find employment for Claire and myself, since the wretch who gave us the prints to colour has dared to – "

After a short silence, Madame de Fermont, leaving her last sentence unfinished, indignantly added:

"Horrible idea! To ask the shame of my child in return for the work he doles out to us, and to harshly withdraw it because I will not suffer my poor Claire to go to his house unaccompanied, and work there during the evening alone with him! Possibly I may succeed in obtaining work elsewhere, either in plain or ornamental needlework. Yet it is so very difficult when we are known to no one; and very recently I tried in vain. Persons are afraid of entrusting their materials to those who live in such wretched lodgings as ours. And yet I dare not venture upon others more creditable; for what would become of us were the small sum we possess once exhausted? What could we do? We should be utterly penniless; as destitute as the veriest beggar that ever walked the earth.

"And then to think I once was among the richest and wealthiest! Oh, let me not think of what has been; such considerations serve but to increase the already excited state of my brain. It will madden me to recollect the past; and I am wrong – oh, very wrong – thus to dwell on ideas that sadden and depress instead of raising and invigorating my enfeebled mind. Had I gone on thus weakly indulging regrets, I might, indeed, have fallen ill, – for I am by no means so at present. No, no," continued the unfortunate parent, placing her fingers upon the wrist of her left hand, "my fever has left me, – my pulse beats tranquilly."