comfortable
study of that extraordinary bit of architecture at the end."

On the other side of the passage, toward the garden, was the
dining-room, decorated in imitation of black lacquer with green and
gold flowers; this was separated from the kitchen by the well of the
staircase. Communication with the kitchen was had through a little
pantry built behind the staircase, the kitchen itself looking into the
courtyard through windows with iron railings. There were two chambers on
the next floor, and above them, attic rooms sheathed in wood, which were
fairly habitable. After examining the house rapidly, and observing that
it was covered with trellises from top to bottom, on the side of the
courtyard as well as on that to the garden,--which ended in a terrace
overlooking the river and adorned with pottery vases,--the doctor
remarked:--

"Levrault-Levrault must have spend a good deal of money here."

"Ho! I should think so," answered Minoret-Levrault. "He liked
flowers--nonsense! 'What do they bring in?' says my wife. You saw inside
there how an artist came from Paris to paint flowers in fresco in the
corridor. He put those enormous mirrors everywhere. The ceilings were
all re-made with cornices which cost six francs a foot. The dining-room
floor is in marquetry--perfect folly! The house won't sell for a penny
the more."

"Well, nephew, buy it for me: let me know what you do about it; here's
my address. The rest I leave to my notary. Who lives opposite?" he
asked, as they left the house.

"Emigres," answered the post master, "named Portenduere."

The house once bought, the illustrious doctor, instead of leaving
there, wrote to his nephew to let it. The Folie-Levraught was therefore
occupied by the notary of Nemours, who about that time sold his practice
to Dionis, his head-clerk, and died two years later, leaving the house
on the doctor's hands, just at the time when the fate of Napoleon was
being decided in the neighbourhood. The doctor's heirs, at first misled,
had by this time decided that his thought of returning to his native
place was merely a rich man's fancy, and that probably he had some tie
in Paris which would keep him there and cheat them of their hoped-for
inheritance. However, Minoret-Levrault's wife seized the occasion
to write him a letter. The old man replied that as soon as peace
was signed, the roads cleared of soldiers, and safe communications
established, he meant to go and live at Nemours. He di