artin Theatre, "on account
of repairs." Hippolyte, who had seen the performance gratis of a comical
scene with Monsieur Molineux as concerning certain decorative repairs
in his studio, was not surprised to see the dark greasy paint, the
oily stains, spots, and other disagreeable accessories that varied the
woodwork. And these stigmata of poverty are not altogether devoid of
poetry in an artist's eyes.

Mademoiselle Leseigneur herself opened the door. On recognizing the
young artist she bowed, and at the same time, with Parisian adroitness,
and with the presence of mind that pride can lend, she turned round to
shut the door in a glass partition through which Hippolyte might have
caught sight of some linen hung by lines over patent ironing stoves, an
old camp-bed, some wood-embers, charcoal, irons, a filter, the household
crockery, and all the utensils familiar to a small household. Muslin
curtains, fairly white, carefully screened this lumber-room--a
_capharnaum_, as the French call such a domestic laboratory,--which was
lighted by windows looking out on a neighboring yard.

Hippolyte, with the quick eye of an artist, saw the uses, the furniture,
the general effect and condition of this first room, thus cut in half.
The more honorable half, which served both as ante-room and dining-room,
was hung with an old salmon-rose-colored paper, with a flock border,
the manufacture of Reveillon, no doubt; the holes and spots had been
carefully touched over with wafers. Prints representing the battles
of Alexander, by Lebrun, in frames with the gilding rubbed off were
symmetrically arranged on the walls. In the middle stood a massive
mahogany table, old-fashioned in shape, and worn at the edges. A small
stove, whose thin straight pipe was scarcely visible, stood in front
of the chimney-place, but the hearth was occupied by a cupboard. By a
strange contrast the chairs showed some remains of former splendor; they
were of carved mahogany, but the red morocco seats, the gilt nails and
reeded backs, showed as many scars as an old sergeant of the Imperial
Guard.

This room did duty as a museum of certain objects, such as are never
seen but in this kind of amphibious household; nameless objects with the
stamp at once of luxury and penury. Among other curiosities Hippolyte
noticed a splendidly finished telescope, hanging over the small
discolored glass that decorated the chimney. To harmonize with this
strange collection of furniture, th