re meanwhile
he had, without willing it, brought mourning, desolation, poverty, and
death.

The evening before, when dinner was ready, Madame Descoings and Agathe
expected Philippe. They waited dinner till seven o'clock. Agathe always
went to bed at ten; but as, on this occasion, she wished to be present
at the midnight mass, she went to lie down as soon as dinner was over.
Madame Descoings and Joseph remained alone by the fire in the little
salon, which served for all, and the old woman asked the painter to add
up the amount of her great stake, her monstrous stake, on the famous
trey, which she was to pay that evening at the Lottery office. She
wished to put in for the doubles and singles as well, so as to seize all
chances. After feasting on the poetry of her hopes, and pouring the two
horns of plenty at the feet of her adopted son, and relating to him her
dreams which demonstrated the certainty of success, she felt no other
uneasiness than the difficulty of bearing such joy, and waiting from
mid-night until ten o'clock of the morrow, when the winning numbers were
declared. Joseph, who saw nothing of the four hundred francs necessary
to pay up the stakes, asked about them. The old woman smiled, and led
him into the former salon, which was now her bed-chamber.

"You shall see," she said.

Madame Descoings hastily unmade the bed, and searched for her scissors
to rip the mattress; she put on her spectacles, looked at the ticking,
saw the hole, and let fall the mattress. Hearing a sigh from the depths
of the old woman's breast, as though she were strangled by a rush of
blood to the heart, Joseph instinctively held out his arms to catch the
poor creature, and placed her fainting in a chair, calling to his mother
to come to them. Agathe rose, slipped on her dressing-gown,
and ran in. By the light of a candle, she applied the ordinary
remedies,--eau-de-cologne to the temples, cold water to the forehead, a
burnt feather under the nose,--and presently her aunt revived.

"They were there is morning; HE has taken them, the monster!" she said.

"Taken what?" asked Joseph.

"I had twenty louis in my mattress; my savings for two years; no one but
Philippe could have taken them."

"But when?" cried the poor mother, overwhelmed, "he has not been in
since breakfast."

"I wish I might be mistaken," said the old woman. "But this morning
in Joseph's studio, when I spoke before Philippe of my stakes, I had a
presentiment. I did