helmet and a cuirass. He slept among boxes of
bonbons, vases of gilded porcelain, and carved images of the Virgin,
picked up at Lucerne and on the Righi. Madame Marmet, in her widowhood,
had sold the books which her husband had left. Of all the ancient
objects collected by the archaeologist, she had retained nothing except
the Etruscan. Many persons had tried to sell it for her. Paul Vence had
obtained from the administration a promise to buy it for the Louvre, but
the good widow would not part with it. It seemed to her that if she lost
that warrior with his green bronze helmet she would lose the name that
she wore worthily, and would cease to be the widow of Louis Marmet of
the Academie des Inscriptions.

"Do not be afraid, Madame; a comet will not soon strike the earth. Such
a phenomenon is very improbable."

Madame Martin replied that she knew no serious reason why the earth and
humanity should not be annihilated at once.

Old Lagrange exclaimed with profound sincerity that he hoped the
cataclysm would come as late as possible.

She looked at him. His bald head could boast only a few hairs dyed
black. His eyelids fell like rags over eyes still smiling; his cheeks
hung in loose folds, and one divined that his body was equally withered.
She thought, "And even he likes life!"

Madame Marmet hoped, too, that the end of the world was not near at
hand.

"Monsieur Lagrange," said Madame Martin, "you live, do you not, in
a pretty little house, the windows of which overlook the Botanical
Gardens? It seems to me it must be a joy to live in that garden, which
makes me think of the Noah's Ark of my infancy, and of the terrestrial
paradises in the old Bibles."

But he was not at all charmed with his house. It was small, unimproved,
infested with rats.

She acknowledged that one seldom felt at home anywhere, and that rats
were found everywhere, either real or symbolical, legions of pests that
torment us. Yet she liked the Botanical Gardens; she had always wished
to go there, yet never had gone. There was also the museum, which she
was curious to visit.

Smiling, happy, he offered to escort her there. He considered it his
house. He would show her rare specimens, some of which were superb.

She did not know what a bolide was. She recalled that some one had
said to her that at the museum were bones carved by primitive men, and
plaques of ivory on which were engraved pictures of animals, which were
long ago extinct. She