s in
the provinces, and the uneventful quietness of provincial life had
already entered into his soul; his mind returned to those dear old
miserable days with a vague sense of regret. The Comtesse du Chatelet
filled his thoughts for a whole week; and at last he came to attach so
much importance to his reappearance, that he hurried down to the coach
office in L'Houmeau after nightfall in a perfect agony of suspense,
like a woman who has set her last hopes upon a new dress, and waits in
despair until it arrives.

"Ah! Lousteau, all your treasons are forgiven," he said to himself, as
he eyed the packages, and knew from the shape of them that everything
had been sent. Inside the hatbox he found a note from Lousteau:--

FLORINE'S DRAWING-ROOM.

"MY DEAR BOY,--The tailor behaved very well; but as thy profound
retrospective glance led thee to forbode, the cravats, the hats,
and the silk hosen perplexed our souls, for there was nothing in
our purse to be perplexed thereby. As said Blondet, so say we;
there is a fortune awaiting the establishment which will supply
young men with inexpensive articles on credit; for when we do not
pay in the beginning, we pay dear in the end. And by the by, did
not the great Napoleon, who missed a voyage to the Indies for want
of boots, say that, 'If a thing is easy, it is never done?' So
everything went well--except the boots. I beheld a vision of thee,
fully dressed, but without a hat! appareled in waistcoats, yet
shoeless! and bethought me of sending a pair of moccasins given to
Florine as a curiosity by an American. Florine offered the huge
sum of forty francs, that we might try our luck at play for you.
Nathan, Blondet, and I had such luck (as we were not playing for
ourselves) that we were rich enough to ask La Torpille, des
Lupeaulx's sometime 'rat,' to supper. Frascati certainly owed us
that much. Florine undertook the shopping, and added three fine
shirts to the purchases. Nathan sends you a cane. Blondet, who won
three hundred francs, is sending you a gold chain; and the gold
watch, the size of a forty-franc piece, is from La Torpille; some
idiot gave the thing to her, and it will not go. 'Trumpery
rubbish,' she says, 'like the man that owned it.' Bixiou, who came
to find us up at the _Rocher de Cancale_, wished to enclose a bottle
of Portugal water in the package. Said our first comic man