his last fortnight in advance, otherwise I
should already have turned him out."

"You should not have taken in such a lodger."

"But, except him, I hope madame has nothing to complain of. There is a
twopenny postman, who is the cream of honest fellows, and overhead,
beside the chamber of the stout lame man, a lady and daughter, who do
not move any more than dormice."

"I repeat, Madame de Saint-Ildefonse only complains of this stout lame
man, who is the nightmare of the house; and I warn you that, if you keep
such a fellow in your house, you will find all your respectable lodgers
leave you."

"I will send him away, you may be assured. I have no wish to keep him."

"You will only do what's right, for else your house will be forsaken."

"Which will not answer my purpose at all; so, sir, consider the stout
lame man as gone, for he has only four more days to stay here."

"Which is four days too many; but it is your affair. At the first
outbreak, my niece leaves your house."

"Be assured, sir--"

"It is all for your own interest,--and look to it, for I am not a man
of many words," said M. Badinot, with a patronising air, and he went
out.

Need we say that this female and her young daughter, who lived so
lonely, were the two victims of the notary's cupidity? We will now
conduct the reader to the miserable retreat in which they lived.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE VICTIMS OF MISPLACED CONFIDENCE.[6]

Let the reader picture to himself a small chamber on the fourth floor of
the wretched house in the Passage de la Brasserie. Scarcely could the
faint glimmers of early morn force their pale rays through the narrow
casements forming the only window to this small apartment; the three
panes of glass that apology for a window contained were cracked and
almost the colour of horn, a dingy and torn yellow paper adhered in some
places to the walls, while from each corner of the cracked ceiling hung
long and thick cobwebs; and to complete the appearance of wretchedness
so evident in this forlorn spot, the flooring was broken away, and, in
many places, displayed the beams which supported it, as well as the lath
and plaster forming the ceiling of the room beneath. A deal table, a
chair, an old trunk, without hinges or lock, a truckle-bed, with a
wooden headboard, covered by a thin mattress, coarse sheets of
unbleached cloth, and an old rug,--such was the entire furniture of this
wretched chamber.

[6] "The average punishmen