his spite would find an echo.

"Well, fair lady," he began, "what did you think of yesterday's dinner?"

"It was very fine," replied Madame Phellion; "as I tasted that soup 'a
la bisque' I knew that some caterer, like Chevet, had supplanted the
cook. But the whole affair was dull; it hadn't the gaiety of our old
meetings in the Latin quarter. And then, didn't it strike you, as it did
me, that Madame and Mademoiselle Thuillier no longer seemed mistresses
of their own house? I really felt as if I were the guest of Madame--what
_is_ her name? I never can remember it."

"Torna, Comtesse de Godollo," said Phellion, intervening. "The name is
euphonious enough to remember."

"Euphonious if you like, my dear; but to me it never seems a name at
all."

"It is a Magyar, or to speak more commonly, a Hungarian name. Our own
name, if we wanted to discuss it, might be said to be a loan from the
Greek language."

"Very likely; at any rate we have the advantage of being known, not
only in our own quarter, but throughout the tuition world, where we have
earned an honorable position; while this Hungarian countess, who makes,
as they say, the good and the bad weather in the Thuilliers' home, where
does she come from, I'd like to know? How did such a fine lady,--for
she has good manners and a very distinguished air, no one denies
her that,--how came she to fall in love with Brigitte; who, between
ourselves, keeps a sickening odor of the porter's lodge about her. For
my part, I think this devoted friend is an intriguing creature, who
scents money, and is scheming for some future gain."

"Ah ca!" said Minard, "then you don't know the original cause of the
intimacy between Madame la Comtesse de Godollo and the Thuilliers?"

"She is a tenant in their house; she occupies the entresol beneath their
apartment."

"True, but there's something more than that in it. Zelie, my wife, heard
it from Josephine, who wanted, lately, to enter our service; the matter
came to nothing, for Francoise, our woman, who thought of marrying,
changed her mind. You must know, fair lady, that it was solely Madame
de Godollo who brought about the emigration of the Thuilliers, whose
upholsterer, as one might say, she is."

"What! their upholsterer?" cried Phellion,--"that distinguished woman,
of whom one may truly say, 'Incessu patuit dea'; which in French we very
inadequately render by the expression, 'bearing of a queen'?"

"Excuse me," said Minard. "I did n