lush for the
mother whom he revered; and this sublime love of hers more than atoned
for a defective education.

The breeches-maker's business sold for about twenty thousand francs,
and the widow invested the money in the Funds in 1820. The income of
eleven hundred francs per annum derived from this source was, at one
time, her whole fortune. For many a year the neighbors used to see the
doctor's linen hanging out to dry upon a clothes-line in the garden,
and the servant and Mme. Poulain thriftily washed everything at home;
a piece of domestic economy which did not a little to injure the
doctor's practice, for it was thought that if he was so poor, it must
be through his own fault. Her eleven hundred francs scarcely did more
than pay the rent. During those early days, Mme. Poulain, good, stout,
little old woman, was the breadwinner, and the poor household lived
upon her earnings. After twelve years of perseverance upon a rough and
stony road, Dr. Poulain at last was making an income of three thousand
francs, and Mme. Poulain had an income of about five thousand francs
at her disposal. Five thousand francs for those who know Paris means a
bare subsistence.

The sitting-room, where patients waited for an interview, was shabbily
furnished. There was the inevitable mahogany sofa covered with
yellow-flowered Utrecht velvet, four easy-chairs, a tea-table, a console,
and half-a-dozen chairs, all the property of the deceased breeches-maker,
and chosen by him. A lyre-shaped clock between two Egyptian
candlesticks still preserved its glass shade intact. You asked
yourself how the yellow chintz window-curtains, covered with red
flowers, had contrived to hang together for so long; for evidently
they had come from the Jouy factory, and Oberkampf received the
Emperor's congratulations upon similar hideous productions of the
cotton industry in 1809.

The doctor's consulting-room was fitted up in the same style, with
household stuff from the paternal chamber. It looked stiff,
poverty-stricken, and bare. What patient could put faith in the skill
of any unknown doctor who could not even furnish his house? And this
in a time when advertising is all-powerful; when we gild the gas-lamps
in the Place de la Concorde to console the poor man for his poverty by
reminding him that he is rich as a citizen.

The ante-chamber did duty as a dining-room. The servant sat at her
sewing there whenever she was not busy in the kitchen or keeping the
d