ed in the kitchen, and as to Flore, she laughed convulsively.
After breakfast, while Jean-Jacques read the newspapers (for they
subscribed to the "Constitutionel" and the "Pandore"), Max carried Flore
to his own quarters.

"Are you quite sure he has not made any other will since the one in
which he left the property to you?"

"He hasn't anything to write with," she answered.

"He might have dictated it to some notary," said Max; "we must look out
for that. Therefore it is well to be cordial to the Bridaus, and at the
same time endeavor to turn those mortgages into money. The notaries will
be only too glad to make the transfers; it is grist to their mill. The
Funds are going up; we shall conquer Spain, and deliver Ferdinand VII.
and the Cortez, and then they will be above par. You and I could make a
good thing out of it by putting the old fellow's seven hundred and fifty
thousand francs into the Funds at eighty-nine. Only you must try to get
it done in your name; it will be so much secured anyhow."

"A capital idea!" said Flore.

"And as there will be an income of fifty thousand francs from eight
hundred and ninety thousand, we must make him borrow one hundred and
forty thousand francs for two years, to be paid back in two instalments.
In two years, we shall get one hundred thousand francs _in_ Paris, and
ninety thousand here, and risk nothing."

"If it were not for you, my handsome Max, what would become of me now?"
she said.

"Oh! to-morrow night at Mere Cognette's, after I have seen the
Parisians, I shall find a way to make the Hochons themselves get rid of
them."

"Ah! what a head you've got, my angel! You are a love of a man."

The place Saint-Jean is at the centre of a long street called at
the upper end the rue Grand Narette, and at the lower the rue Petite
Narette. The word "Narette" is used in Berry to express the same lay
of the land as the Genoese word "salita" indicates,--that is to say, a
steep street. The Grand Narette rises rapidly from the place Saint-Jean
to the port Vilatte. The house of old Monsieur Hochon is exactly
opposite that of Jean-Jacques Rouget. From the windows of the room where
Madame Hochon usually sat, it was easy to see what went on at the Rouget
household, and vice versa, when the curtains were drawn back or the
doors were left open. The Hochon house was like the Rouget house, and
the two were doubtless built by the same architect. Monsieur Hochon,
formerly tax-collector at Se