sible; and I feel sure she would
sell this furniture for ready money at a quarter of the price it cost
her. All of it is nearly new, and some things have never been used at
all.'"

"So," cried Madame Phellion, "all that magnificence displayed before our
eyes last night was a magnificent economical bargain?"

"Just so," replied Minard; "and the thing that decided Mademoiselle
Brigitte to take that splendid chance was not so much the desire to
renew her shabby furniture as the idea of doing an excellent stroke
of business. In that old maid there's always something of Madame la
Ressource in Moliere's 'Miser.'"

"I think, Monsieur le maire, that you are mistaken," said Phellion.
"Madame la Ressource is a character in 'Turcaret,' a very immoral play
by the late Le Sage."

"Do you think so?" said Minard. "Well, very likely. But what is certain
is that, though the barrister ingratiated himself with Brigitte in
helping her to buy the house, it was by this clever jockeying about the
furniture that the foreign countess got upon the footing with Brigitte
that you now see. You may have remarked, perhaps, that a struggle is
going on between those two influences; which we may designate as the
house, and its furniture."

"Yes, certainly," said Madame Phellion, with a beaming expression that
bore witness to the interest she took in the conversation, "it did seem
to me that the great lady allowed herself to contradict the barrister,
and did it, too, with a certain sharpness."

"Very marked sharpness," resumed Minard, "and that intriguing fellow
perceives it. It strikes me that the lady's hostility makes him uneasy.
The Thuilliers he got cheaply; for, between ourselves you know, there's
not much in Thuillier himself; but he feels now that he has met a tough
adversary, and he is looking anxiously for a weak spot on which to
attack her."

"Well, that's justice," said Madame Phellion. "For some time past that
man, who used to make himself so small and humble, has been taking airs
of authority in the house which are quite intolerable; he behaves openly
as the son-in-law; and you know very well, in that affair of Thuillier's
election he jockeyed us all, and made us the stepping-stone for his
matrimonial ambition."

"Yes; but I can assure you," said Minard, "that at the present time his
influence is waning. In the first place, he won't find every day for his
dear, good friend, as he calls him, a fine property worth a million to
be b