he left bank, and the port where the boats and barges discharge
their merchandise before a line of poor but picturesque houses.

Nothing can better express provincial life than the deep silence that
envelops the little town and reigns in its busiest region. It is easy
to imagine, therefore, how disquieting the presence of a stranger, if
he only spends half a day there, may be to the inhabitants; with what
attention faces protrude from the windows to observe him, and also the
condition of espial in which all the residents of the little place stand
to each other. Life has there become so conventional that, except on
Sundays and fete-days, a stranger meets no one either on the boulevards
or the Avenue of Sighs, not even, in fact, upon the streets.

It will now be readily understood why the ground-floor of the Beauvisage
house is on a level with the street and square. The square serves as its
courtyard. Sitting at his window the eyes of the late hosier could take
in the whole of the Place de l'Eglise, the two squares of the bridge,
and the road to Sezanne. He could see the coaches arriving and the
travellers descending at the post-inn; and on court days he could watch
the proceedings around the offices of the mayor and the justice of
peace. For these reasons, Beauvisage would not have exchanged his house
for the chateau, in spite of its lordly air, its stone walls, and its
splendid situation.

VIII. IN WHICH THE DOT, ONE OF THE HEROINES OF THIS HISTORY, APPEARS

Entering the Beauvisage house we find a versatile, at the farther end
of which rises the staircase. To right we enter a large salon with
two windows opening on the square; to left is a handsome dining-room,
looking on the street. The floor above is the one occupied by the
family.

Notwithstanding the large fortune of the Beauvisage husband and wife,
their establishment consisted of only a cook and a chamber-maid, the
latter a peasant, who washed and ironed and frotted the floors rather
than waited on her two mistresses, who were accustomed to spend their
time in dressing and waiting upon each other. Since the sale of the
business to Jean Violette, the horse and cabriolet used by Phileas, and
kept at the Hotel de la Poste, had been relinquished and sold.

At the moment when Phileas reached his house after the Giguet meeting,
his wife, already informed of the resolutions passed, had put on her
boots and shawl and was preparing to go to her father; for she f