fourths) were seldom absent from Madame Grégoire's calculations. Besides, Monsieur Boncoeur's housekeeper was to be conciliated as a connecting link in her chain of domestic investigation; for Madame Alexandre not only afforded her quota of information concerning her own and her master's affairs, but, in pure pryingness of spirit, contrived to see through stone-walls, and hear down chimneys, while striving to put this and that together concerning those of her fellowlodgers. "Well, Madame Grégoire, what is the best news with us this evening?" demanded the jolly dame, as soon as the porteress had despatched her hungry grandson home to his mamma, the kittens and canaries. "I'm just stepping out, you see, for my little game with the Pruins. Poor people, they can't do without me! If I warn't with them before the clock struck eight, I should be having them here after me; and, to be filling the house with visitors during master's absence, is a thing I'm not in the habit of doing, as nobody knows, better than yourself. Indeed, it's a matter of conscience that takes me out the moment his back is turned. As a femme de confiance, I'm bound to see there's no waste; and where there's visitors there must be tippling and stuffing; so, out of regard to Monsieur Boncoeur's property, I'm seldom in the house ten minutes after him. I hope I know my duty by so respectable a master better than to make away with his goods like Ma'mselle Berthe up yonder, who keeps open house like a lady, with as many rings at her bells of an evening as e'er a duchess in the land! But, as I was saying, Madame Grégoire,(Dearie me, I thought I wasn't by no means comfortable! I've been sitting on the knitting-needles! lucky my cloak was wadded!)—as I was saying, have you made out anything further about them Cour sons ?" "Scarce a syllable more than the first day they took possession! One knowed they was respectable, 'cause our proprietor is exceeding particular about references, (there isn't a partic'larer landlord from one end of the Boulevards to t' other !)-and one knowed they was poor, 'cause their moveables came on a porter's truck, instead of occupying a cart and horse, as becomes a creditable lodger, or instead of occupying three vans of the administration des déménagemens, as was the case, I remember, when our respectable first-floor moved in." Madame Alexandre smiled a neat and appropriate smile of acknowledgment for her master; while the porteress took breath, a pinch of snuff, and proceeded. "But as to their origin, and sitch, I know no more than Adam! Not an acquaintance in the parish! I even put the water-carrier upon asking about the neighbourhood; but no such name as Courson was ever heard of! How do we know, pray, who we've got among us? Courson may be a sham name, such as we reads of in Monsieur Jules Janin's novels !" "Such rubbish, indeed!" said Madame Alexandre, with a sneer, intended, like the epithet, to apply to the lodgers on the third-floor, ignored by the water-carrier and public-houses in the neighbourhood, not to Monsieur Janin's novels, which were probably familiar to them all. "Would you believe it, ma'am? there's the saucy minx of a daughter (Ma'mselle Claire, I think, you told me was her name,) has the owdacity to bid me good morning or good evening if I haps to meet her on the stairs, affable-like, as if she felt me her inferiorer! Me! Now I don't know, Ma'me Grégoire, what your opinion may be, but I holds (and so does my friends, the Pruins,) that the upper domestics of the first-floor is on a 'quality with the lodgers of the third, that keeps no domestics at all." the porteress, still harping "But have you made out "Certainly, ma'am, certainly," replied on the amount of her New Year's gift. nothing of these people's occupations? You're two floors nigher to ’em than me. If I was in your place" "If you was in that of the housekeeper of Monsieur Georges, you mean! Ma'mselle Berthe's store-closet looks clean into Ma'mselle Claire's room." "Looks dirty in," emended the prying porteress. "And, if Ma'mselle Berthe wasn't as dry as a handful of deal shavings, maybe I might have demeaned myself to ask her in a friendly way how the young lady passed her mornings. But Ma'mselle Berthe (the chissie !) condescends to hold just about as much communication with me as one of the chayney mandarins on the top of master's cabinet,—shakes her head by way of salutation, and not a word !" "But, Guguste (Monsieur Georges's little lad of all work and no play) assured me he saw Ma'mselle Courson ring at Monsieur Boncoeur's bell the other day, and deliver a letter to the footman." "Oho! that dirty little gamin plays the spy upon those who rings at Monsieur Boncoeur's bell, do he?" cried the housekeeper, reddening. "Very dirty behaviour, I must confess!" "But, my dear madam, my dear friend," whined the porteress in a tone of deprecation, "did not you yourself inform me that Monsieur Boncoeur's footman carried up on Sunday se'nnight, by Monsieur Boncoeur's desire, to Ma'mselle Claire, a box of apricot marmalade, and the last number of the 'Follet'?" "I said no such thing, ma'am, as I remember. The marmalade and the journal was both lawfully directed to Madame Courson. I never so much as insinnivated a word of an intention of attention to Mademoiselle !" "Then I miscomprehended, ma'am; in which I'm the more to blame, because, from the highly-respectable character of the mansion for which I have the honour to pull the string, (there isn't, as I said before, a more partic'larer landlord than the proprietor from one end of the Boulevarts to t' other,) I might have known that even the letters of a gentleman so distinguished as my first-floor would never have been received by Ma'mselle, the daughter of Madame Courson." "That's all you know about it,-is it?" cried the lusty housekeeper, crimsoning with pique. "Then be so good as to tell me what makes such a young lady as Ma'mselle, Madame Courson's daughter, write written letters to so distinguished a gentleman as your first-floor? Answer me that!" "She couldn't be guilty of anything so heinous !" cried the porteress, aghast. "I tell you she was!" "You must be mistaken!" "Seeing is believing, Madame Grégoire !" "Ay! you may have seen her deliver a written letter, poor dear, from her mamma, in all probability?" "No such thing!—from herself." "Now, how can you possibly know! Did you see her write it? Do you even know her handwriting?" "I know her signature,-Claire de Courson;' and you told me your werry self, that the agreement for the lodgings was signed by her mother as Emilie de Courson."" "But the signature was inside the written letter. How could you see that?" "No matter; I did see it with my two eyes as plain as I see you." "And that's plain enough," muttered Guguste, who, having crept back unobserved into the room, was skulking in a corner. 66 Why, sure you didn't go to peep ?" said the porteress, with a knowing look of inquiry and accusation. "What a one you are!" cried Madame Alexandre, trying to turn off jocularly her self-betrayal. "But, not to haggle with partic'lars of how the letter came into my hands, into my hands it came; and what should it be, but a private confidential tête-à-tête epistle from the young lady, saying how Monsieur Boncoeur's reputation for benevolence was up in the neighbourhood, and how he seemed inclined to befriend her poor mother, (the apricot marmalade, you know!) and how it would be a great charity (no, not charity,—act of humanity the shabby-genteels calls it,) if he would exert his interest to procure for her mamma a privilege to sell stamps, a bureau de papier timbré; for which, of course, his petitioner was ever bound to pray, and so forth." "I hope they don't think of setting up anything in the shop or office line in a house like ourn?" cried Madame Grégoire, with dignity. "They'll find theirself plaguily out of their reckoning!for I must say it, who shouldn't say it, that there isn't a more partic'larer landlord." "I'll just tell you what," ruthlessly interrupted Madame Alexandre, twitching her silk cloak, as if meditating departure. "Tonight's Monday, you know." 66 Yes, I do know." "And that's the reception-night, you know, of the Minister of the Home Department." "No, I didn't know." "And, as sure as life, "Lord lovee, Ma'me Alexandre, don't use that profane expression! There's nothing less sure than life!" cried Madame G. while Auguste groaned in the background. "As sure as a gun, then-" Again Auguste groaned. -Master 's gone this evening to the hotel of the Ministre de l'Interieur, to present Ma'mselle Claire's petition for a stamp-office." "Do you raally think things of that sort are done in that sort of straight-for'ard way?" demanded the porteress. "I fancied that, when you wanted anything of government, you got a word said for you to the cousin of some clerk-of-a-deputy-to-an-under-commis sioner, with, maybe, a genteel little offering, to make it go down,— such as a Savoy cake, or a China rose-tree in a flower-pot." "Nonsense! You're thinking of folks of your own species," said the housekeeper disdainfully. "You forget that my master, Monsieur Boncoeur, 's a representative of the nation, a governor of the Bank of France, and a marguillier of the parish. Master's a right to go straight an end to the king, and tell his majesty any little wish he may have ungratified. And, if he should think proper to mention to Louis Philippe Ma’mselle Claire's desire that her mamma should set up a bureau for stamps, her business is done !" They were interrupted by the starting up of Guguste, who was crouching behind them, and placed an admonitory finger on his lip to impose silence upon Madame Grégoire's meditated rejoinder, just as a very white hand, holding a very black key, was intruded into the room through the porter's window; and the silvery accents of Mademoiselle Courson were heard, announcing to the porteress that she was going out for half an hour; and that, though her mother remained at home, she was indisposed, and could receive no visitors." "Visitors, indeed! Who ever comes to visit them, I should like to know!" muttered Madame Grégoire, after pulling the cordon to admit of the young lady's egress. "She certainly had a bundle under her arm!" cried Madame Alexandre, who had been watching the young lady through the window. "Now, how I should like to know where she's going." "To the pharmacy, for medicine for her mother, or to the herborist for lime-blossoms, to make tisanne," said Guguste, who shrewdly anticipated a request on the part of the elderly ladies that he would arise and play the spy upon the movements of Mademoiselle Claire. "Pho! pho! The old lady's only trouble-sick, which would be a deal worse than body-sick, only that it don't require no physic," observed the porteress. "Then she's gone to the laundress." "Laundress, indeed!" cried the fat housekeeper; as if low-lived people like the third-floor wasn't their own laundress !" "Pardon me, my dear Ma'me Alexandre," cried the porteress "You know we don't allow no hanging out in this house. There's not a more partic'larer landlord in ""Tis my true and honest belief," interrupted the lady in the silkcloak, "that the girl is gone to the Mont de Piété! I said to Robert, our footman, when he was taking up master's apricot marmalade, that 'twould be a deal more to the purpose if he took up a good dish of cutlets, or a fricandeau; for, as you and I was agreeing t' other day, my dear Ma'me Grégoire, not an ounce of anything eatable beyond daily bread ever goes up these blessed stairs to the thirdfloor. And, what's more, I've noticed strange changes in Miss and Madam since they took up in the house; I don't mean in point of growing thin and meagre, 'cause care alone, without starving, will bring the poor body of a poor soul down to nothing. But, the day as their goods came in, Ma'mselle Courson had as good a cloak over her shoulders as the one on mine (which cost me a good hundred and thirty livres in the Passage de l'Örme,) and Ma'mselle Claire's hav ing a velvet collar doubtless might be counted at twenty more. What's become of it, I should like to know ?" box. Ay, what's become of it, eh?" added the porteress, tapping her "Certes! people that has a comfortable cloak is apt to put it on such nights as this!" rejoined the housekeeper; "but I say nothing." "The young lady may have lent it to her mamma, who is indisposed," pleaded Guguste. "Fuel is ris' within the week. I don't suppose they've too much fire." "Lent it to her mamma, indeed!" cried Madame Alexandre. "Why, Madame Courson has as handsome a Thibet shawl as ever came out of Ternaux's factory." "Had," emended the porteress. "I haven't seen the red shawl on her shoulders these three weeks. On that point I has my suspicions." A single rap, Parisian-wise, at the porte cochère, produced the usual professional tug at the cordon. The gate flew open; and, peeping in at the window-pane, was seen the rubicund face of Monsieur Paul Emile Pruin, the grocer, come in search of his loitering guest. "So, so, so!" cried he, on detecting her in the thick of gossip with the grandmamma of Dodore. "This is the way you keep your appointments, ma belle voisine? Haven't we had the hearth made up these three quarters of an hour, candles snuffed, (bougies de l'étoile, always a-snuffing!) a fresh bottle of groseille frambroisée ready to be uncorked, and a batch of biscuits de Rheims ready to be opened?— Saw Monsieur le Députe's carriage bowl out, and been hoping ever since to see you bowl in. Poor Madame Paul in the fidgets, as if she'd swallowed a flight of swallows,-up and down,-in and out. Sent me over with the umbrella to look after you." "Thank you, thank you!" cried Madame Alexandre. ""Tis the first of the month, you see," she continued, winking at the blind old porteress (to whom a nod and wink were much alike) to back her apologies. "I'd my little postage account to settle with my good friend here. But now I'm at your service. Allons!" "Guguste, my dear, show the lantern to Madame Alexandre over the ruisseau," said the porteress, turning round to look for her boarder. But Guguste had disappeared. He had perhaps sneaked away to track the mysterious footsteps of Mademoiselle de Courson. MARTIAL IN TOWN. THE SERVANT OUT OF LIVERY. DANDLE! when thou art asked abroad, We know that thou canst draw a cork; |