s, did not think it strange that the wife of
a rich notary should wish to inspect a volume costing fifteen francs
before deciding on the purchase. Your clever man never condescends to
study the middle-class, who escape his ken by this want of attention;
and while he is making game of them, they are at leisure to throttle
him.

So one day early in January 1837, Madame Cardot and her daughter took
a hackney coach and went to the Rue des Martyrs to return the parts
of _Gil Blas_ to Felicie's betrothed, both delighted at the thought of
seeing Lousteau's rooms. These domiciliary visitations are not unusual
in the old citizen class. The porter at the front gate was not in; but
his daughter, on being informed by the worthy lady that she was in the
presence of Monsieur Lousteau's future mother-in-law and bride, handed
over the key of the apartment--all the more readily because Madame
Cardot placed a gold piece in her hand.

It was by this time about noon, the hour at which the journalist would
return from breakfasting at the Cafe Anglais. As he crossed the open
space between the Church of Notre-Dame de Lorette and the Rue des
Martyrs, Lousteau happened to look at a hired coach that was toiling up
the Rue du Faubourg-Montmartre, and he fancied it was a dream when he
saw the face of Dinah! He stood frozen to the spot when, on reaching his
house, he beheld his Didine at the coach door.

"What has brought you here?" he inquired.--He adopted the familiar _tu_.
The formality of _vous_ was out of the question to a woman he must get
rid of.

"Why, my love," cried she, "have you not read my letters?"

"Certainly I have," said Lousteau.

"Well, then?"

"Well, then?"

"You are a father," replied the country lady.

"Faugh!" cried he, disregarding the barbarity of such an exclamation.
"Well," thought he to himself, "she must be prepared for the blow."

He signed to the coachman to wait, gave his hand to Madame de la
Baudraye, and left the man with the chaise full of trunks, vowing that
he would send away _illico_, as he said to himself, the woman and her
luggage, back to the place she had come from.

"Monsieur, monsieur," called out little Pamela.

The child had some sense, and felt that three women must not be allowed
to meet in a bachelor's rooms.

"Well, well!" said Lousteau, dragging Dinah along.

Pamela concluded that the lady must be some relation; however, she
added:

"The key is in the door; your mother-in-law is