r of his home.

"A feast in honor of the return of the prodigal father?" said he in a
murmur to Adeline.

"Hush!" said she, "all is forgotten."

"And Lisbeth?" he asked, not seeing the old maid.

"I am sorry to say that she is in bed," replied Hortense. "She can
never get up, and we shall have the grief of losing her ere long. She
hopes to see you after dinner."

At daybreak next morning Victorin Hulot was informed by the porter's
wife that soldiers of the municipal guard were posted all round the
premises; the police demanded Baron Hulot. The bailiff, who had
followed the woman, laid a summons in due form before the lawyer, and
asked him whether he meant to pay his father's debts. The claim was
for ten thousand francs at the suit of an usurer named Samanon, who
had probably lent the Baron two or three thousand at most. Victorin
desired the bailiff to dismiss his men, and paid.

"But is it the last?" he anxiously wondered.

Lisbeth, miserable already at seeing the family so prosperous, could
not survive this happy event. She grew so rapidly worse that Bianchon
gave her but a week to live, conquered at last in the long struggle in
which she had scored so many victories.

She kept the secret of her hatred even through a painful death from
pulmonary consumption. And, indeed, she had the supreme satisfaction
of seeing Adeline, Hortense, Hulot, Victorin, Steinbock, Celestine,
and their children standing in tears round her bed and mourning for
her as the angel of the family.

Baron Hulot, enjoying a course of solid food such as he had not known
for nearly three years, recovered flesh and strength, and was almost
himself again. This improvement was such a joy to Adeline that her
nervous trembling perceptibly diminished.

"She will be happy after all," said Lisbeth to herself on the day
before she died, as she saw the veneration with which the Baron
regarded his wife, of whose sufferings he had heard from Hortense and
Victorin.

And vindictiveness hastened Cousin Betty's end. The family followed
her, weeping, to the grave.

The Baron and Baroness, having reached the age which looks for perfect
rest, gave up the handsome rooms on the first floor to the Count and
Countess Steinbock, and took those above. The Baron by his son's
exertions found an official position in the management of a railroad,
in 1845, with a salary of six thousand francs, which, added to the six
thousand of his pension and the money left to him