those
two years, if you take those quiet lodgings, you will have time to think
of a career, especially among the persons with whom you will live, who
are all good counsellors."

Here Louis Mongenod returned, bringing in his hand a hundred notes of a
thousand francs each, which he gave to Madame de la Chanterie. Godefroid
offered his arm to his future hostess, and took her down to the
hackney-coach which was waiting for her.

"I hope I shall see you soon, monsieur," she said in a cordial tone of
voice.

"At what hour shall you be at home, madame?" he asked.

"At two o'clock."

"I shall have time to sell my furniture," he said, as he bowed to her.

During the short time that Madame de la Chanterie's arm rested upon his
as they walked to the carriage, Godefroid could not escape the
glamour of the words: "Your account is for sixteen hundred thousand
francs!"--words said by Louis Mongenod to the woman whose life was spent
in the depths of the cloisters of Notre-Dame. The thought, "She must be
rich!" entirely changed his way of looking at the matter. "How old is
she?" he began to ask himself; and a vision of a romance in the rue
Chanoinesse came to him. "She certainly has an air of nobility! Can she
be concerned in some bank?" thought he.

In our day nine hundred and ninety-nine young men out of a thousand in
Godefroid's position would have had the thought of marrying that woman.

A furniture dealer, who also had apartments to let, paid about three
thousand francs for the articles Godefroid was willing to sell, and
agreed to let him keep them during the few days that were needed to
prepare the shabby apartment in the rue Chanoinesse for this lodger with
a sick mind. Godefroid went there at once, and obtained from Madame de
la Chanterie the address of a painter who, for a moderate sum, agreed
to whiten the ceilings, clean the windows, paint the woodwork, and stain
the floors, within a week. Godefroid took the measure of the rooms,
intending to put the same carpet in all of them,--a green carpet of the
cheapest kind. He wished for the plainest uniformity in this retreat,
and Madame de la Chanterie approved of the idea. She calculated, with
Manon's assistance, the number of yards of white calico required for
the window curtains, and also for those of the modest iron bed; and
she undertook to buy and have them made for a price so moderate as
to surprise Godefroid. Having brought with him a certain amount of
furniture,