d certainly respected this
room where their glories and their disasters had left not the slightest
trace.

"Ah! my godmother, in comparison with your life, mine has been cruelly
tried," exclaimed Madame Bridau, surprised to find even a canary which
she had known when alive, stuffed, and standing on the mantleshelf
between the old clock, the old brass brackets, and the silver
candlesticks.

"My child," said the old lady, "trials are in the heart. The greater
and more necessary the resignation, the harder the struggle with our
own selves. But don't speak of me, let us talk of your affairs. You are
directly in front of the enemy," she added, pointing to the windows of
the Rouget house.

"They are sitting down to dinner," said Adolphine.

The young girl, destined for a cloister, was constantly looking out of
the window, in hopes of getting some light upon the enormities imputed
to Maxence Gilet, the Rabouilleuse, and Jean-Jacques, of which a few
words reached her ears whenever she was sent out of the room that others
might talk about them. The old lady now told her granddaughter to leave
her alone with Madame Bridau and Joseph until the arrival of visitors.

"For," she said, turning to the Parisians, "I know my Issoudun by heart;
we shall have ten or twelve batches of inquisitive folk here to-night."

In fact Madame Hochon had hardly related the events and the details
concerning the astounding influence obtained by Maxence Gilet and the
Rabouilleuse over Jean-Jacques Rouget (without, of course, following the
synthetical method with which they have been presented here), adding the
many comments, descriptions, and hypotheses with which the good and evil
tongues of the town embroidered them, before Adolphine announced
the approach of the Borniche, Beaussier, Lousteau-Prangin, Fichet,
Goddet-Herau families; in all, fourteen persons looming in the distance.

"You now see, my dear child," said the old lady, concluding her tale,
"that it will not be an easy matter to get this property out of the jaws
of the wolf--"

"It seems to me so difficult--with a scoundrel such as you represent
him, and a daring woman like that crab-girl--as to be actually
impossible," remarked Joseph. "We should have to stay a year in Issoudun
to counteract their influence and overthrow their dominion over
my uncle. Money isn't worth such a struggle,--not to speak of the
meannesses to which we should have to condescend. My mother has only two
week