ust finished dusting the room; the chamber-maid and the cook were
carrying, with an alacrity that denoted an enthusiasm equal to their
attachment, all the chairs of the house, and piling them up in the
garden, where the trees were already unfolding their leaves, through
which the cloudless blue of the sky was visible. The springlike
atmosphere and sun of May allowed the glass door and the two windows of
the oblong salon to be kept open.

An old lady, Madame Marion herself, now ordered the two maids to place
the chairs at one end of the salon, four rows deep, leaving between the
rows a space of about three feet. When this was done, each row presented
a front of ten chairs, all of divers species. A line of chairs was also
placed along the wall, under the windows and before the glass door.
At the other end of the salon, facing the forty chairs, Madame Marion
placed three arm-chairs behind the tea-table, which was covered with a
green cloth, on which she placed a bell.

Old Colonel Giguet arrived on this battle-field at the moment when his
sister bethought herself of filling the empty spaces on either side
of the fireplace with benches from the antechamber, disregarding
the baldness of their velvet covers which had done good service for
twenty-four years.

"We can seat seventy persons," she said to her brother triumphantly.

"God grant that we may have seventy friends!" replied the colonel.

"If, after receiving every night, for twenty-four years, the whole
society of Arcis-sur-Aube, a single one of my regular visitors fails us
on this occasion--" began the old lady, in a threatening manner.

"Pooh, pooh!" replied the colonel, interrupting his sister, "I'll name
you ten who cannot and ought not to come. First," he said, beginning to
count on his fingers, "Antonin Goulard, sub-prefect, for one; Frederic
Marest, _procureur-du-roi_, there's two; Monsieur Olivier Vinet, his
substitute, three; Monsieur Martener, examining-judge, four; the justice
of peace--"

"But I am not so silly," said the old lady, interrupting her brother in
her turn, "as to expect office-holders to come to a meeting the object
of which is to give another deputy to the Opposition. For all that,
Antonin Goulard, Simon's comrade and schoolmate, would be very well
pleased to see him a deputy because--"

"Come, sister, leave our own business of politics to us men. Where is
Simon?"

"He is dressing," she answered. "He was wise not to breakfast, for he